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Tag: #Agba Jalingo

  • Project Abandonment: Stalling The Shovels And The Pans BY AGBA JALINGO 

     

    The Guardian Newspaper reported recently that more than 56,000 projects worth 12 trillion Naira have been abandoned in Nigeria since 1999, citing the Institute of Quantity Surveyors. These projects include the N18bn National Library, NIPOST headquarters construction, N39bn FIRS headquarters construction, N69bn Millennium Tower and Cultural Center construction, N7bn Ministry of Agric headquarters construction, World Trade Centre, N700bn Abuja City Centre, N4.3bn 220-Bed Utako General Hospital, $18billion Centenary City in Abuja, amongst many others scattered across the country.

    It is nerve wracking to imagine that, year in year out, these huge sums are appropriated and in many cases, disbursed either in part or in full, and the projects are jilted without consequences. How this sort of financial rascality has seemingly become a matter of numb indifference to the population is even more appalling. We just keep moving on as if nothing happened.

    But in this same country, when Third Mainland Bridge was built, it was the longest bridge in Africa until 1996 when the 6th October Bridge in Cairo was completed. The National Theatre, NITEL, NEPA, Nigerian Ports Authority, Military and Police barracks, East West Road, Kano-Maiduguri road, functional airports, Federal Secretariat, National Assembly Complex, Aso Rock Villa, Eagle Square, Courts, Stadia, were all built by jack boot regimes that we agree are unconstitutional and corrupt.

    At the regional levels, Premiers of the various regions also left some iconic infrastructure that are still surviving till date and we talk about them with relish and nostalgia. And I have been asking myself what memorable functional projects have these set of democratic leaders started and completed since 1999 when democracy returned to Nigeria?

    I really wish those who do these things will realize that our economic development is tied to these abandoned infrastructure. They should realize also that if we don’t develop, none of us, no matter how much you have amassed, will be safe from those who don’t have. The rich will continue to axle themselves within the city centers or ride perpetually in armoured automobiles with a bevy of armed security guards.

    Our contemporary nations that have attained this realization are tying their future to infrastructure development and taking deliberate steps. The Indian ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) for instance, has internally set a goal to construct at least 45km of highways a day in 2023 totalling 16,000km of roads. The ministry achieved a record 13,298km in the COVID pandemic-stricken year of 2020-21, at a rate of 36.4km per day. The road building target has helped to reduce travel time, connected new areas, stimulated commercial activities, and accelerated India’s growth story.

    Someone should deliberately take the gauntlet and vow to leave us some legacy projects. It is not luxury. It is what we just have to do so we don’t perish. The stealing just has to be reduced at least. Massive infrastructure development will create a chance for young people to dust their pans and their shovels, and reduce crime. It will give our population the clefts of succour and sustained hope and provide us all some roads out of this national malaise.

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • Witchcraft Is Not Africanized BY AGBA JALINGO 

     

    In Old English, “Wicce” means “witch.” The word, “Wicce” further has its roots in the old German word, “Wicken.” While the word, cræft, is equally an Old English word originally meaning “power or physical strength.” Cræft could also be interpreted to signify possession of inexplicable knowledge, wisdom, and resourcefulness. The term is as well derived from the Old High German word, “kraft.”

    So “Wicce-Cræft”, or witchcraft is not Africanized. It is not an African word. It did not originate from Africa. Rather, it has generic meaning not just to the Anglo-Germans, but the entire Europe and in fact, all civilizations. It is a cultural phenomena with evidential history cutting across all civilizations and epochs. All civilizations have their pre-religous ethos and practices. Europe has a pre-Christian era. The Arabs have a pre-Islam era. China has a pre-Bhuddist era. India has a pre-Hindu era. Every culture on Earth contains some aspect of symbolic gestures or ritualized behavior performed either by an entire group or by a select few individuals, before adopting their current religions.

    In Europe for instance, the practice of witchcraft was the dominant culture until it was overtaken by global consensus on the belief in One God, as well as the burgeoning influence of the Catholic Church, which led to a craze fuelled wave of witch hunting and trials across the continent during the middle ages. For two millennia, European folklore and ritual have been imbued with the belief in witchcraft and till date, witchcraft continues to play a role in European societies and imaginations.

    It was the Malleus Maleficarum, (Hammer of Witches), a 1486 treatise written by Austrian priest, Heinrich Kramer and German priest Jakob Sprenger, at the request of Pope Innocent VIII, which reigned as the second-best-selling book in Europe for more than two centuries, that united the Church and the State, in providing a framework for identifying, capturing, prosecuting, and punishing witches.

    But since the 1940s, new witchcraft movements have emerged in Europe, seeking to revive and reinterpret the continents’ pre-Christian practices in a search for spiritual authenticity in a rapidly changing world. Wicca, an English neo witchcraft group, pioneered by Gerald Gardner, stands out as one of the most influential of those movements. Stregheria is an Italian sect that celebrates early Italian witchcraft. Its adherents say that their tradition has pre-Christian roots, and refer to it as La Vecchia Religione, the Old Religion.

    Religio Romana, is a modern reconstructionist religion based upon the ancient faith of pre-Christian Rome. The Asatru tradition is also a reconstructionist path that focuses on pre-Christian Norse spirituality. The movement began in the 1970s as part of a revival of Germanic witchcraft culture. Many Asatruar say their practices are very similar in its modern form to those that existed hundreds of years before the Christianization of the Norse cultures. Hellenic Polytheism, rooted in the traditions and philosophies of the ancient Greeks, is another path that has begun a resurgence following the Greek pantheon, and often adopting the religious practices of their ancestors.

    It is in the light of this global resurgence in the search for cultural authenticity, and its imminence in Africa, that I will like to end by quoting, theologian, Dr. Mary Nyangweso Wangila, a J. Woolard and Helen Peel Distinguished Professor in Religious Studies at East Carolina University, from her book: “Witches” of the Twenty-First Century: Invoking the Relevance and Resilient Character of African Spirituality in Changing Times”, where she argues that, “the resurgence of practitioners of African spirituality in Africa and the African diaspora, commonly known to some as “witches” in the twenty-first century, as demonstrated in practices and lyrics of the millennials such as Beyonce, Banks and Nokia is not only illustrative of the ability of African spirituality to evolve and adapt, it speaks to the centrality of African identity in the African experience.

    “Drawing from experiences of Africans in the sub-Saharan region and those in the African diaspora, I argue that the general assumption that relegating African religious beliefs and practices as “savage,” “primitive” and “uncivilized” and therefore destined to decline is disproven by resilient manifestations of African spirituality in modern society.”

    She further concludes by acknowledging the, “disadvantage that these religions experience due to their lack of the proselytizing instinct that their monotheistic peer religions like Christianity and Islam possess, their persistence not only speaks to an Afrocentric character that is central to Africans everywhere, it is also an illustration of the basic fact that all social phenomena is bound to evolve and adapt. Resilient vestiges of African spirituality are indicative of how irreplaceable and un-erasable core African values are and how they speak to an identity that cannot be traded for another.”

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • Mummy Eiler, The Lone Resident Who Is Mayor And Every Other Thing.. BY AGBA JALINGO

    Five miles from the South Dakota border in the remote northern reaches of the US state of Nebraska, there is a small town called, Monowi, with only one resident and an abandoned church, whose empty pews are now filled with tractor tyres.

    84 years old, Elsie Eiler, became the only resident of Monowi, after her husband Rudy, passed away in 2004. Today, according to the US Census, Monowi is the only incorporated place in the US with just one resident, and Eiler is the mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian, bartender and only person left in the US’ tiniest town.

    She pays taxes to herself, grants her own alcohol licence and runs a tavern where people come from neighbouring towns to patronize. As mayor, each year, she hangs up a notice in Monowi’s only business (her bar) advertising mayoral elections, and then votes for herself.

    She’s required to produce a municipal road plan every year to secure state funding, and then raises about $500 worth of taxes from herself annually to keep the town’s three lampposts flickering and its water flowing.

    Eiler explained to the BBC in 2020 that: “When I apply to the state for my liquor and tobacco licenses each year, they send them to the secretary of the village, which is me. So, I get them as the secretary, sign them as the clerk and give them to myself as the bar owner.”

    She walks a few feet from her home to the tavern each morning at 9am to open the bar, except Mondays, when she gives herself a day off. She sells alcohol and also cooks hamburgers ($3.50), hot dogs ($1.25) and gizzards ($4). Most of her regular customers live within 20 to 30 miles but others drive 200 miles from Lincoln and Omaha to patronize her and Eiler doesn’t usually close up until after 21:30 when things quieten down.

    Monowi is one of three incorporated towns in Boyd County, Nebraska, that has fewer than 10 residents. Monowi surpassed nearby Gross, Nebraska, with a population of 2 residents to become the only incorporated town in the US with just one resident.

    Do you have the resilience of Mummy Eiler Rudy? Can you live in a ghost town and make sense of it and derive all the happiness you wish for? Can you run even your street residents association and maintain the legendary orderliness of Mummy Eiler? Ponder!!!

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • Betta Edu: The Meteoric Rise Of The Unexpected BY AGBA JALINGO

     

    This life remains a mystery and no one can lay claim to knowing all, except God. But every culture has developed an acceptable method of societal organization that suits their nuances and attempts to settle their incongruities.

    Where I come from, in Obudu, “uñwå ushîé”, meaning (a child from the mother’s village), can never be rejected in the mother’s village. It’s a taboo. The child even has preferential rights than others in the village. The child is usually granted land ownership rights and communal protection. If that child even commits murder in another land, the only place he or she can be banished to, is the mother’s village. If any animal is killed in that village, the child is traditionally entitled to the ‘neck’ of the animal, be it chicken, pig, ram, goat, cow or even bush meat. The neck is reserved for the “bébūâ úshîé.” (Plural).

    However, one evident pent-up in this cool sounding narrative is the subtle discomfort and manifest bitterness that starts to mushroom once the “unwa-ushie” begins to rise and amass authority and power beyond expectations. That is when hush conspiracies coalesce to recall your nativity and sundry dust. Rising from grass threatens lower rungs naturally. It purveys the entrenched audacity of lower floors that never thought a high rise could emerge beside them. It is not their fault. It is a natural reaction to every such action.

    Rising, particularly at a meteoric speed, inherently attracts attention and publicity. You will be talked about in leaps and bounds. Many things will be said about you that are true and false. A lot will be attributed to you and much more will be detracted from you. In that light, I dare say that so much has been said about the new Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr Betta Edu.

    At 37, over a period of just eight years, from being a youth corper in government house, she has been Special Adviser on Health to governor, DG of Health Agency, Commissioner for Health, National Woman Leader, and now Minister of the Federal Republic. This couldn’t have come without a dent of competence and self drive. In my humble opinion, I think Dr Betta Edu is a young Cross Riverian that has presented herself as a handy example for other young women in our State and country wide, to understand that women have space at the top, if they can strive.

    I will rather stand with her and watch her get to work than vilify her. What can Betta do? How can Betta better the lives of poor Nigerians? How can she positively take the bull by the horn and maximize the space she has been given, no matter how little, to impact a good number of Nigerians? How can Betta create a reliable national social register and maximize technology that will ensure intervention programs get to the targeted sections of indigents?

    These are the parameters that will inform my judgment of her and not the cacophony of pelting has not been able to impede her velocity.

     

  • When Angels Descend, They Shall Build Us A Country.. BY AGBA JALINGO

    When Angels Descend, They Shall Build Us A Country…

    Amongst all the 13 member States of the, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC, Nigeria remains the only member that imports more than 90 to 95 percent of refined petroleum products to meet its domestic consumption. No other OPEC member, including other African members like Gabon and war torn Libya, are in the same mess.

    But workers at the three government-owned refineries were paid a total of N127bn in year 2021 and 2022 in salaries and wages, even as the plants generated zero revenue as they did not process a single barrel of crude oil.

    The plants, which are located in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri, have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day but have been in a state of disrepair for many years. Yet, they talk very little about how to fix the refineries. Even when they budget money for turn around maintenance, they still share it amongst themselves without retribution.

    The national oil company NNPC, in its monthly presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting on Wednesday, January 17, 2023, said they made zero contribution to the federation revenue account in the month under review. But the audited accounts of the company shows that they spent N788.7 billion in 2021 and N648.6bn the previous year on salaries, entertainment and other costs.

    And for so long as our refineries remain comatose and we continue to import petrol, nurse no hope that the pump price of fuel will ever come down. As the Dollar exchange rate continues to escalate, so shall the cost of petrol continue to rise and I predict N1000 per liter before year end.

    And as the cost of petrol continues to rise to the relish of the intrepid exploiters, rents, food prices, school fees, medicals, clothing, transport cost and all others will also sky rocket. So learn how to manage your finances.

    Nothing is about to change. Those who run our country have no interest whatsoever in building this country. If any one of them say they do, then they have lied to you. This set of politicians cannot even maintain the infrastructure that the military that we vilify so much, managed to build, not to talk of building new ones. They can’t even build their party headquarters in decades. Their interest is not nation building. They are rogues. Very mean rogues without any iota of goodness.

    So manage your meagre finances with frugality. Nothing is about to change. Since Nigerians have decided to only pray instead of fighting those who are making their lives miserable everyday, let us all keep praying for that elusive country that angels will come and build for us someday.

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • What If The Mirror Is Lying To You? BY AGBA JALINGO

    What If The Mirror Is Lying To You?

     

    The mirror has numerous uses but the most common use of a mirror is looking at it to view a reflection of our image while we are at personal grooming. So most human beings in the world including the remotest hamlets, possess mirrors. There are even other mammals that consciously enjoy and relish a reflection of their images in a mirror.

    Looking at our image in a mirror swells our confidence more than a perfect description of our look by someone looking at us. We trust the image in the mirror more than the one in another’s eye. That’s because we are erroneously used to thinking we are seeing ourselves in the mirror as others see us in real life.

    Human images are not exactly symmetrical and the mirror only serves the purpose of a surface for throwing back our image, being incapable of absorbing it. So our reflection from that surface has its left and right backwards. Our reflection from the mirror is inverted. Let me explain, if you stand in front of a mirror and carry up your right hand, it will appear on the left side in the mirror.

    Similarly, if you open a book now, you can read the prints just perfectly? Go stand in front of a mirror while holding that same book and let the pages reflect in the mirror; then it will become difficult to read the reflection of the prints fluently. That is how your reflection looks different from you.

    Technology has further empowered the will and means to tamper with reflection. With modern cameras, lenses and even AI, our reflection can be tampered with, to suit desire. These days, we hear statements like, “he or she does not look in real life like what I saw in the picture or video.”

    It is congenitally desirable for most humans to see ourselves through other eyes, be it a mirror, a camera lens or a human retina. We seek perpetually to know how we look and how we are perceived by others. Our panting about external opinion of us, is compulsive. Yet, not one person who ever lived was able to behold a true reflection of his or her image. At best, we have only approximated in order to satiate an innate desire. Seeing our true reflection will remain illusory and out of grasp, not because it is not attainable but because truly truly, we all are a reflection of one God, whose image none has ever or will ever see.

    In a nutshell, it is the mirrors, the lenses, the human eyes and all such surfaces that reflect us, that show us the differences, the divisions and the clefts in mankind. It is them that divide us. It is them that give us the “we and them” mentality. Yet we cannot abandon them. We cannot live without them. We cannot afford to be blind to the reflection in the mirror. No we can’t! But if only we look more keenly, we may see that the mirror has been lying to us. It has never shown us the full picture.

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • Let’s Pray Hard For Governor Otu, If We Don’t, Then We May Have Moved From Frying Pan To Fire BY AGBA JALINGO

    Let’s Pray Hard For Governor Otu…

    If we don’t, then we may have moved from frying pan to fire.

    First, the Anti-Deforestation committee is populated by timber thieves who are emotionally blackmailing him with “na we work for your election.”

    Lease agreement for Cally Aircraft, signed with a company that has no business whatsoever with aviation.

    And now, the vehicle recovery task force is being emasculated. Out of 500 missing vehicles, they have recovered 49. Most of the appointees in the former government that are being trailed by the task force members are so angry and have resorted to seeking the former Governor’s intervention. And now they are again, emotionally blackmailing the new governor with his pending matter in the election petition tribunal.

    It’s like “You want to embarrass members of the last government right? Your government we worked hard to install? We will embarrass you at the tribunal and you will lose the seat.” That’s the drama playing out.

    So everyone the task force tracks a vehicle to now, they make calls and the new governor is like, “please let that one be for now.”

    Who wan lose governor seat?

    Several vehicles have been tracked to different locations across the State and even as far as Lagos. One was even recovered in Ikoyi, Lagos and seized with the help of operatives of the DSS. But phone calls to the Governor have made nonsense of all those commendable efforts.

    My people, it may well be said that the assignment of that task force may have shared premature grace, unless Governor Otu, can damn the subtle blackmails, fund the committee adequately, stop interfering to hamper their operations and give them a free hand to move on all those involved.

    God please, don’t let us enter another one chance.

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • May Prince Otu, Weather The Herculean Start… BY AGBA JALINGO

    May Prince Otu, Weather The Herculean Start…

    The spotlight has shifted to the Cross River State Governor-Elect already. Expectedly, Prince Otu’s residence is the new mill for those who earn a living only from government house. With only 50 days to go, the incumbent governor is spent and fizzled out and the newest hood is buzzing. That is nothing unusual afterall. It’s a political culture.

    First was the group of hawks I refer to as “entitlers.” They were quick to appear around him. Like the panting of a dehydrated Deer after water, these folks looked weary and desparate to have a dip in the incoming pot. They have spent their years in power or close to power but they can’t have enough and must always be around every government in power, so they can perpetually remain in power or near power.

    They feel entitled. They claim they have “suffered” so much for our State over the years, therefore, they must be allowed to continue to be the Praetorian Guards of power for us. They are still hanging around; not with ideas to move our State forward, but with pockets waiting to be filled and names pressing to get appointments.

    Then there is the very nauseous group of those who are lurking around for appointments and the only reason they say they deserve the appointment is that they won their polling units for Otu. Some say because they have “crowd” in their constituencies and can mobilize for Otu. Some say because they have “suffered” for their party for years and it’s their turn to enjoy. Some say because their community has never gotten any government appointment since 1700. Some say because Prince Otu has been their friend and man Friday since 1823. Some say because even when people didn’t believe in Prince Otu’s aspiration to be Governor, they were the ones who carried him and sold him like garri to the voters and some say because it’s their turn in the zoning formula etc.

    While all these considerations can rightly be aggregated for compensation, it is more necessary for Prince Otu, to look for a coterie of patriots who are going to assist him clean the mess he will meet on ground and grab a lot of quick wins, lest he loses the Herculean start. Not many of these sort of performers are keen about going to homes of those who win elections to genuflect. Yes, not many of them!

    Prince Otu, has to deliberately look beyond the throng of buzzards in his abode and search for them as a primary role to help him provide overall political direction and take the necessary decisions to ensure a coherent and coordinated take off. From day one, there should be a marked departure from where we are exiting; where appointment into government office has been reduced to a laughable spectacle and a nefarious conduit. That take off speed is very crucial to determine the outlook of the journey.

    Happy Easter Celebration.

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.

  • Agba Jalingo Released After One Week In Prison For ‘Insulting’ Governor Ayade’s Sister In-Law

    By Jonathan Ugbal, CrossRiverWatch 

    Nigerian Journalist and rights activist, Citizen Agba Jalingo has regained freedom one week after he was remanded at the Medium Security Custodial Center Kuje, Abuja by Justice Zainab Abubakar of the Abuja division of the Federal High Court for alleged acts of cybercrime.

    Citizen Jalingo was docked last week Monday on charges bordering on false publication intended to cause, “annoyance, ill will and insult,” on the person of Mrs. Ayade, wife of Mr. Frank Ayade, who is the younger brother of Cross River Governor, Sen. Ben Ayade.

    He is alleged to have committed offenses punishable by Section 24 (1)b of the Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act 2015, Court documents in suit number FHC/ABJ/CR/565/2022 show.

    Agba who had pleaded not guilty when arraigned on Monday, was remanded but later admitted to bail on Thursday, March 31, 2023. However, he failed to perfect the conditions on time on Friday, leading to his extended stay in custody.

    On Monday, his release warrant was signed and served on the correctional authorities who released him.

    The Case

    Mrs. Ayade had in July 2022, through her lawyer, Uyi Frank Obayagbona Esq. had written to Mr. Jalingo seeking a retraction of an article that queried why a suspended staff of the University of Calabar, Paschal Aboh Esq was facing trial for impersonating a student of the Nigerian Law School, Abuja campus while the person who allegedly contracted him (Mrs. Ayade) was walking free.

    She asked for an apology to be published in two national dailies, including, but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, and Cross River Watch (not CrossRiverWatch) as well as NGN 500 million in damages. He was given fourteen days to comply otherwise legal proceedings will be instituted against him.

    However, Police from the FCT Command on August 19, 2022, stormed the Ogudu, in Lagos State residence of Citizen Jalingo, and arrested him, several hours after holding his wife and daughter hostage.

    He was subsequently detained at the Alapere police station and later, at Area F Command in Ikeja before he was flown to Abuja the next day where it was revealed that Mrs. Ayade had abandoned the civil approach and rather petitioned him for allegedly defaming her character.

    He was released later that night and when asked to return two days later on August 22nd, was asked to go back to Lagos since Mrs. Ayade failed to show up.

    But, news filtered in, in January 2023, that the Police abandoned the criminal defamation case and opted to sue Citizen Jalingo for alleged cyber crimes.

    Also, civil proceedings secretly filed in September 2022 at the High Court of the FCT, were served via substituted means at the gate of Hit 95.9 FM Calabar where Mr. Jalingo is not a staff.

  • Bakassi: The Fairy-tale Of A Homeless Tribe… BY AGBA JALINGO

    Bakassi: The Fairy-tale Of A Homeless Tribe…

    After Nigeria unjustly used a portion of our State, Bakassi to play father-christmas on the alter of international politics and nefariously ceded it to Cameroon over a cup of tea in foreign land, the human beings living in what is now called Bakassi LGA in Cross River State, are still treated like SHIT! Yes, that’s the word…SHIT! Even the Etinyin of Bakassi, His Royal Majesty Etiyin Etim Okon Edet, who doubles as the Chairman of the Cross River State Traditional Rulers Council, does not have a palace any longer; after his palace was ceded along with their lands to Cameroon. He lives in his personal house in Calabar Municipal.

    Bakassi has 10 political Wards on paper. The 10 Wards are currently delineated into 70 polling units PUs. The February 18, 2023 Presidential and NASS Elections, held in only 20 out of the 70 polling units in Bakassi LGA. Elections did not hold in 50 polling units due to insecurity, according to INEC.

    Let it be on record that voters that INEC registered, and made to queue under the Sun for weeks to collect their voters’ cards all came out in those 50 polling units eager to vote. These voters include former Presidential Aide, Senator Ita Giwa, and a former LG Chair of Bakassi, Hon. Bassey Ita Edet, They waited from morning till the election time was over only for INEC officials not to show up.

    INEC asked them to come back the next day, Sunday February 19 to vote. They still turned up as directed, very eager to vote. They waited until INEC informed them late in the evening that the BVAS machines were configured for only Saturday and that the Commission was unable to reconfigure them for Sunday, so the rescheduled election still did not hold. Even Ita Giwa, did not vote.

    But INEC still went ahead and announced winners. So let us see the numbers.

    The total number of registered voters in Bakassi is 15,642. INEC accredited a total of 1,165 voters on election day. Less 14,477 of those INEC registered.

    Out of 1,165 accredited voters on election day, a total of 1,147 cast their ballots in the Presidential election.

    Valid votes were..…1,076
    Rejected votes were… 71

    APC got……… 306

    LP got……… 487

    PDP got……… 266

    Others got:…..17

    The margin of victory from these numbers is not more than 200 votes. But the total number of voters that INEC disallowed from voting is over 14,000. How on God’s Earth can such an election be described as a valid election? Does the person laying claim to such dubious victory not feel like a criminal? Such insensitivity and widespread denial of the people of Bakassi from voting, should be tested against our electoral laws in court.

    The implication of this precarious precedence is also that in next Saturday’s State House of Assembly Election, INEC will declare someone with less than 500 votes, as winner to go and represent Bakassi in the Cross River State House of Assembly. That’s actually a fraud and disservice to a people who have been so badly pummeled by the vagaries of international conspiracy and internal greed.

    Let me also remind you that the Supreme Court in February 2018, ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to delineate wards in Bakassi LGA so as to give the people a sense of belonging. Delivering judgment on an appeal brought by the INEC against representatives of Bakassi Council, who were displaced from Cameroon, the apex court in a lead judgment delivered by His Lordship, Justice Inyang Okoro, held that the people of Bakassi have suffered enough and as such, there was the need for INEC to assuage their plight by delineating constituencies in the council. This order hasn’t been executed.

    It is annoying and frustrating how these very important issues are overlooked and allowed to pace away as if they are inconsequential. Just imagine that the children of these parents who are treated like garbage rise tomorrow and take up arms to begin another flank of insurgency against Nigeria? Is this total negligence and denial from participation in a country they think they belong to, not enough reason for rebellion? What actually did the people of Bakassi do to Nigeria to deserve this kind of treatment? Is it because they haven’t resorted to the language Nigeria understands? I am just thinking aloud.

    The other issue troubling me this morning is simple. It’s 74 days to go. It started from 2,922 days. 2,848 days have been spent. Will it truly be on record that, Governor Ayade came and spent 8 solid years in government and does not have a single FUNCTIONAL project in Cross River? With all the grammar laden trillion budgets?

    Even the 52, two bedroom flats Ayade built for the Bakassi returnees were destroyed and now occupied by miscreants.

    Tufiakwa!!!

    Yours sincerely,
    Citizen Agba Jalingo.