Author: The Lumine News

IS THIS HOW GOVERNOR AYADE WILL LEAVE US?

In 79 days time from now, Governor Ayade will share the grace from office. He will stop being our governor. In case you don’t understand; he will hand over to a new governor and become former governor. But the actual grace sharing begins after the primaries of the political parties which must hold and be completed within the next five months. Even before and after then, politicking takes over everything. Governance grinds to a total halt.

But I have been thinking and picking my teeth and wondering that, like play, like play, is this how Governor Ayade will just leave us?

1. Without a superhighway, an evacuation corridor where we will drive from Calabar to Obudu with a glass of water on the trunk of the car and the glass will not shake?

2. Without turning Bakassi to Lugano?

3. Without resettling the Bakassi IDPs?

4. Without, a deep sea port in Bakassi?

5. Without Ikom Chocolates in the stores?

6. Without poles, piles and pylons in even Bedwell market in Calabar?

7. Without even a face towel from garment factory in any shop on Marian road in Calabar?

8. Without a rice city churning out highly improved “Calas 77” seeds to the rest of Nigeria to generate N70billion annually for Cross River and decouple the State from federal allocation?

9. Without a trademark roofing sheet or tile from Yala roofing tile factory, in the market?

10. Without Bekwara groundnut oil in the market?

11. Without Obubra cassava processing factory starch in the stores?

12. Without thousands of Cross Riverians on the Ayadecare insurance scheme?

13. Without a functional passenger and cargo airport in Obudu?

14. Without registering an airline or getting an AOC?

15. With a chicken processing factory that functions only during the Yuletide?

16. Without a cotton farm in Yala to feed the garment factory?

17. With brown roofs in Calabar without changing every roof to blue roof?

18. Without a spaghetti fly over?

19. With a depleted green forest and murderous wood barons?

20. Without a bag of Ogoja rice in the market from a bubbling rice mill in Ogoja?

21. With a nearly decapitated civil service?

22. With children driven away from primary schools for illegal levies?

23. Without Ayadecare Specialist Hospitals in the three senatorial districts?

24. Without Centricot, Northicot and Calas Vegas?

25. Without a petrocross vessel to rake in revenue for our State?

26. Without a vessel to ship merchandize from Cross River to the world?

27. Without a revolutionary robotic and artificial intelligence innovation?

28. Without flying essential drugs to remote areas in Cross River with drones?

29. Without a functional 23 megawatts electricity generating plant in Calabar or 26 megawatts in Tinapa?

30. Without building two megawatts electricity generating plants in each of the 18 Local Government Areas of the State, through Industrial Project Services (IPS) from South Africa?

31. Without a single drug manufactured from CalaPharm?

32. Without a functional toothpick factory in Ekori?

33. Without a functional Cross River microfinance bank?

34. Without a banana processing farm in Odukpani?

These were just some of our governor’s promises amongst others. Once the cameras roll in front of him, the promises begin to cascade like the springs of Obudu Ranch. He promised a bag full and has achieved little. Scattered all over our State today are monuments of infantile passion about industrialization without direction, that will serve as mementos of the trappings of a governor who knew how to talk but could not do.

Governor Ayade remains a shining and fantastic example of how passion alone and ideas do not translate to delivery. He is an epitome of a plan-less leader and a reflection of what a disaster plan-lessness and impulse leadership can wreck.

If you rely on optics and oratory, Ayade will win Nigeria’s best governor any day. But the reality on the ground is not far from me. It is within my grasp, because I am involved.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

If I Put My Candidate In Power, I Am Covered?

This feeling has broken the hearts of several former governors. A litany of them who used their enormous power of incumbency to install successors in the hope that their tracks will be covered, have only had to bite their fingers down the line and face the embarrassing repudiation of such prior commitments, once there is a change of guard.

While we have excellent examples of Deputy Governors in Nigeria who maintained their comportment and cool until the end of the tenures of their principals, we cannot say the same thing with most successors who were foisted on the people by out going governors. Like the perpetual crow of the rooster, their day of rancour is only a few miles down the road.

Let me begin from Lagos, where Fashola was planted by Tinubu. The relationship later became so bitter that it was the generality of Lagosians that rose to Fashola’s defense and kept him in power. Though fences were later mended, what happened between the duo is a lesson in successor politics. What also later happened to Fashola’s successor, Governor Ambode, is public knowledge.

When Orji Uzor Kalu planted his former bone man, Theordore Orji in Abia, he thought he had it all settled. It wasn’t up to six month before Theordore went for the jugular of his former boss. We know how it ended.

The story of Ganduje and Kwankwaso also quickly comes to mind. How one was like eczema on the other’s skin. So close were they that some persons even swore they will never suffer a broken lid. The moment the guards changed, things also changed for the worse and till date, the lid between them is still broken.

Ahmed Sani Yerima of Kebbi, worked so hard to plant Mahmuda Aliyu Shinkafi, as his successor. After taking over, his former man-friday, Shinkafi tormented Yerima so much that he worked double to ensure Shinkafi didn’t return for second term.

Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom is having his own fair share of the successor politics lessons from Emmanuel Udom. Akpabio personally brought Udom and nursed him into Governorship. That relationship has completely soured.

Or is it Aregbesola of Osun State? He even fought with Asiwaju, his political benefactor in order to plant Oyetola. It wasn’t up to the first hundred days in office before the war between the two began. I’m not sure it’s over yet.

Go to Edo State and also verify from Oshiomhole what he has seen in the hands of Obaseki. If you don’t have access to Oshio, please ask Google and see Obaseki’s side of the story and you will understand.

Ibrahim Dankwambo, of Gombe who was practically installed by Senator Danjuma Goje, fell out with his benefactor barely months after taking over power. The duo at a point couldn’t see face to face.

A former governor of Borno State, Ali-Modu Sheriff, had a major disagreement with his anointed successor Kashim Shettima, who is now the VP-elect and at a point, the former governor couldn’t even enter the State.

Attahiru Bafarawa of Sokoto State who also handed over to his anointed successor, Wamakko, had to drag his successor to court only a few months later after accusations of corruption between the two started flying here and there.

Peter Obi left office confident that he did a good job by planting an anointed successor, Willie Obiano, whom Obi personally brought from the banking sector to make Governor. How did it end with the two of them?

Between Sam Egwu of Ebonyi and his successor, Martin Elechi, the story wasn’t different, as well as between Isah Yuguda of Bauchi and his successor.

While in Nasarawa State, former Governor, Tanko Al-Makura, had to set up a panel to probe his predecessor, Senator Abdullahi Adamu.

Even when a father, who was former Governor planted his own son as Governor, in Kwara State, it wasn’t long before the two Sarakis fought to a finish and father frustrated the son from winning a second term.

Back home in Cross River, we know what happened between Duke and Imoke. We also are fully aware of what is ongoing between Imoke and his anointed successor, Ayade. And with this trajectory, we can also predict with exactitude, what will happen between Ayade and whoever he will hand over to, whether that person be his anointed successor, Prince Otu or his old friend, Sandy Onor.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.