Tag: #Agba Jalingo

Are you aware that, no matter how lazy, truant and unthinking you are, once you become a politician over here, and win a political position, you automatically become rich without doing any work? That’s actually the biggest motivation for most persons seeking political office today.

Regardless of the lies of our politicians that their job is not well paid, they are some of the highest paid politicians in the whole world, aside their corruption. They amass so much money while in office, such that they never want to leave those offices. The allure to remain or return is scintillating and motivated by memories of the lavish life they leave; funded by public money. The perquisites of office are too sweet to be forfeited. You get them, whether you work or not.

If not, how can someone complain or claim that there is so much stress and there is no money in the office he or she occupies, yet the person isn’t willing to exit the office. The person is still ready to fight, bribe, maim, and even kill, to remain or return to that same office, where you claim there is so much stress and no money?

What exactly is sticking you there or alluring you to return? Service? Big fat lie! What exactly have you served or did you serve? My view is that, Cross River in general and the Northern part of the State in particular, have remained stagnated for such a long time now that there is a need for intentional people with very strong imagination to emerge again as leaders that can spiral the rapid growth and development of the old Ogoja zone and not some rusty, high shouldered and over pampered society fellas who feel entitled to continually lord over us.

There are a litany of problems to be solved. We need problem solvers. Solution providers. We need people who can lead, not people who want to show off. People who can engage and solve our problems in the long term. People who have empathy and proven ideas on how to deal with what is challenging our communities. People who will be available to contain our onus, not those who will give us tokens. Tokenism and palliativism is not governance. It is see-finish. We need people that will govern us quantitatively.

That’s why I am asking you this morning, how much is your vote, if you are from Cross River North? Is your vote for sale or for development? If it is for sale, how much is it worth? Don’t make the mistake of giving power to misfits again. There is a conspiracy of a desperate power drunk coterie, who are preying on our intelligence and we must not fall for it. We must now deodorize their stinking egos.

We are already seeing the midterm results from those who are currently leading us in the North. I am deliberately keeping this to the North this morning. I hope you are keeping the records and scores. If you are not, I am. I am keeping every detail. It appears there are vacancies in some positions already and there are none in others. When the time is ripe, I will not sit on the fence. I will tell you where I stand, that’s if you don’t know already. I stand with development. I love performers.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Agba Jalingo, and does not represent TheLumineNews, it’s agent or the organization the author works for.

Till date, I do not think anyone will doubt the fact that the Nigerian Television Authority NTA, remains the largest single public TV network in Africa. That is a fact. But in the past decade, their audience has dwindled scandalously that even those who work with NTA, rarely consume any information from their own station.

The same station where kids used to rush with lightning speed to sit on bare floors to watch programs like Tales by Moonlight, Speak Out, Cockcrow at Dawn, Samanja, Mirror in the Sun, Checkmate, I Need To Know and many other very educative programs, has lost its appeal not just amongst young people but also amongst the elites who concoct the lies that the station churns out.

Using the NTA as a classic example, how they pointed fingers at the emergence of private media houses as the cause of their misfortune, in like manner, the downward spiral of the fortunes of some self-appointed journalism gate keepers, is making them think that popular media practitioners, who were not originally trained as journalists, are the reason for their woes. These classroom and textbook journalists are about town fouling the air and trying to tell us who should be practicing journalism as they teach us in the classrooms, even when most of them know little or nothing about the practice of impactful journalism.

I don’t want to mention some of the names of these self acclaimed pontificators, but I want to tell each and every one of them that; what you should be perturbed about is why the public no longer enjoys your kind of journalism and prefers to follow those who did not train as journalists enmasse? Why has the popular appeal shifted to individuals who may not be trained as journalists, but are practicing journalism? Why are those trained as journalists now incapable of serving the public the menu they enjoy consuming?

What is the quality, content, model and intent of the journalism curriculum today? Does it retain the capacity to produce pen pushers that can capture the imagination of the population? What is the quality and depth of those training the journalist? Comparatively, how many of those textbook journalists have been able to make impactful reports that brought measurable change as against those who weren’t trained as journalists but are practicing journalism?

If you are able to answer these posers frankly, you would have defined who a journalist is. The thing is that you are stuck with what the textbooks told you, what your journalism lecturers told you, what the professional organizations told you. Others who weren’t originally trained as journalists are targeting what the people need. They are serving the journalistic appetite and consumerism of the people directly. That’s why the people are running to them now every time they need the media. Not because they don’t know that you are trained as a journalist, but because they no longer need your services.

And let me now tell you what your problem is: You are angry from within. Just shout it out loud and say you are envious of the wave the person living rent free in your head is making. It’s that simple. You know it yourself. In the deepest recesses of your heart, na envy dey worry you. You are upset that even without what you think you know better, that person is ahead of you. If you say so, you would not break any law. You simply would have said the truth because, ENVY is exactly what is wrong with you.

People are risking their lives investigating stories you cannot, and risking their livelihoods asking questions you cannot dare to ask, yet all you classroom and textbook journalists fiddle with in your brain, is who trained as a journalist or not? There is a cliche in my place that; “the food of a cook who learnt cooking from a textbook, and the food of a cook who learnt how to cook from mama, do not taste the same.”

The few most popular TVs, Radios and Newspapers in Nigeria today are manned mostly by people who were not trained as journalists. While the most inefficient ones around are those manned by people who were trained as journalists. Most of them were only trained to earn salaries from practicing journalism as a career, while those who picked up journalism are using it as a tool to change society.

This is not in any way to detract from the argument for improved and continuous training to be more efficient in the practice of journalism. It is a very vital and essential requirement for everyone who wants to make significant progress in the field. This belaboring is to tell those who think that others must knock on their doors before picking a pen or gadget to practice journalism, because they sat in a classroom to study it, that they should all get out there, into the field and do what they were trained to do, make measurable impact, and they’ll be no space for others or shut their mouths forever!

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Agba Jalingo, and does not represent TheLumineNews, its agent or the organization the author works for.

There is an African proverb amongst royalty that says that, “it is the one who wants to suffer for the people that accept the heavy weight of royal beads.”

And truly speaking, royal beads are many and very heavy. Not just heavy in terms of responsibility but physically when measured on a scale. A complete set of royal dressing includes not just the beads but also several age long metals that carry a lot of weight on the scale. Part of the idea is to constantly remind the carrier of the huge responsibility he or she bears.

With all its envied privileges, royalty confers even greater responsibility and denial. Because to lead, is to be in a position of advantage, in the first place amongst equals. To be a pathway, a leading light and bridge for others into a new destination; holding them by the hand to find their way from ignorance; shining as an example for them to follow.

Talking about new destinations, if I were to be a leader, I would endeavour to build on the good things my predecessors did by thinking out new and improved methods of doing those same things for the good of the people.

Assuming that my predecessors many years ago, bought hoes and cutlasses for our people who are predominantly farmers, Me, their new King, should be able to move it further and introduce our people to modern farming tools, to boost resources utilization and yield per hectare, as well as expanding economic opportunities. If they were given fishing nets, can we now explore the chances of giving them fishing boats?

Bringing it down to political leadership, if our leaders distributed Okada to our people 20 years ago, dug boreholes for our people 20 years ago, distributed generators for our people 20 years ago, gathered our people under canopies and trees for health outreaches 20 years ago, campaigned with wrappers and rice, 20 years ago, etc, after two decades, isn’t there any new thinking to improve on, modify or do away with these methods after such a long period? Are we so bereft of innovating new initiatives to improve on executing these same programs by employing new ways of doing things? Or is there a deliberate ploy to perpetuate our state of being 20 years ago?

The budget figures are scaling up yearly and changing rapidly, can the methods of implementing these budgets also change along? Can we intentionally decide to improve on our governance processes and discard this copy and paste model? Is our goal to develop our communities or just to share power? Can these thrones survive by keeping the people down perpetually?

If the King must lead and enjoy the perquisites of the throne, he must not forfeit the sacrifice of appeasement, lest he falls.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Agba Jalingo, and does not represent TheLumineNews, its agent or the organization the author works for.

I commend Citizen Agba Jalingo for his unrelenting efforts in ensuring that our National Assembly members are accountable to the people whose mandates they hold on trust. By highlighting projects facilitated into the budget by them, he is not only equipping the people with more information on the activities of their representatives but also promoting the efforts of lawmakers.

However, we must also sensitize our citizens to know that appearance of projects in the budget does not translate to funding of the project. This is important to avoid a situation where we’ll begin to harass our lawmakers for projects that the executive arm is yet to fund. The legislative arm only has appropriation power and not the authority to fund/execute projects.

Currently, Nigeria is unusually running more than one budget. The 2024 budget is now running concurrently with the 2025 budget even though so many projects there are yet to be funded. Even though we expect that the Nass members who nominated these projects will follow up and lobby relevant authorities to ensure contracts are awarded and funded, people should be educated on where their power end.

Also, some privileged Cross Riverians who are working in offices where they can make case for the funding of these items should help. The Nass members definitely need the support of everybody to ensure that their vision for these projects are actualized.

I commend Honourable Peter Akpanke and Godwin Offiono for the overwhelming number of projects they’ve facilitated into the budget for their respective constituencies. As first timers and opposition lawmakers, this is a huge statement of intent. I encourage them to take their efforts further by lobbying to ensure that the projects are funded and executed.

Once again, bravo Citizen Agba!

Inyali Peter, Ph.D.