CROSS RIVER NORTH SENATORIAL ZONE: OBJECTIVITY, PERFORMANCE AND ACCEPTABILITY ABOVE MEDIOCRITY. A CASE FOR SENATOR JARIGBE AGOM AMIDST THE PAROCHIAL INTEREST AND UNKNOWN ZONING FORMULA PROPONENTS.
As party congresses are gradually winding down to prepare the stage for party primaries ahead of the general elections in 2027, individuals with both serious and unserious aspirations for various public offices are also beginning to show their faces through support groups and pockets of persons pushing their interests.
This brings to mind Cross River North Senatorial Zone and the need for keen watchers to put objectivity ahead of mediocrity, performance, and acceptability above parochial individual interest, unnecessary division, and unknown zoning formula. We can’t sacrifice unprecedented achievements in our senatorial district on the altar of selfish individual interest.
A performer cannot be traded for what we are not sure of and don’t know or those who were even tested with public office in the past and performed abysmally and short-changed our people for personal aggrandisement.
We are aware of political schemers, jobbers, pretenders, and deceivers who are introducing unpopular, wicked, selfish, unknown zoning slogan aimed at taking us backwards, God forbid. They will fail like they failed in 2023 by God’s grace. Those trying desperately to deceive themselves in the name of Bekwarra LGA and OBO, some urging traditional and emergency democrats to mobilize support for an individual’s selfish agenda to meet with the governor on the grounds of unpopular zoning formula.
Unknown to them, such arrangement is dead on arrival because two local governments in the governor’s senatorial district Akamkpa and Biase are yet to produce a Senator since creation with no hope in sight for them in 2027. Are they saying the governor as the leader of the zone and state is a biased leader and being unfair to Akamkpa and Biase LGAs? I dare them to appeal to our amiable governor to do justice in his own district in 2027 before moving to the central district with Obubra and Abi LGAs, before ours in the north.
Unfortunately for advocates of Bekwarra LGA for Senate, the present senator, Jarigbe Agom, has done more in infrastructure and economic development than any elected political office holder from Bekwarra LGA. He is also a bona fide son of Bekwarra and OBO, his mother’s biological LGA is Bekwarra. His unparalleled records range from over 40 boreholes to numerous schools, roads, health centres, financial empowerment, motorcycles, tricycles, etc and across the three LGAs that makes OBO.
Jari Wonder’s superlative achievements are visible to the blind, audible to the deaf and speak volumes in our district. Most importantly, Senator Jarigbe Agom loves and have the interests of OBO and Bekwarra people as demonstrated in his actions more than the greedy aspirants masquerading as saints because of 2027 elections and pretending to be loyal to everyone in power.
When this dispensation started, Bekwarra was considered and given a senatorial seat after the northern senatorial district lost the gubernatorial primary of PDP in controversial circumstances to HE Donald Duke. Senator Chief Godwin Kanu Agabi (SAN) was elected and was later appointed minister by former president Olusegun Obasanjo. I can’t tell whether in consultation with our Bekwarra people, but I am sure it was a power play and calculations of having a minister ahead of a Senator at that material time and season. Ogoja as the mother Local Government in the northern district was left without producing anyone in the senate for years, yet all these emergency justice and freedom fighters did nothing to mitigate this visible imbalance and were nowhere to be found. Until the biblical kingdom of God suffereth violence and the violent taketh it by force happened through divine intervention that brought Senator Jarigbe Agom. Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency and OBO are one and there is no division, the division being portrayed only exist in the minds of those opposed to the idea of presenting our best for a critical assignment in 2027.
I’m happy the governor is too sophisticated and too smart to be deceived with this inordinate ambition of failed people. The popularity of Senator Jarigbe Agom cannot be overemphasised, having defeated all the Senatorial aspirants now as candidates in 2023. In Bekwarra LGA, because of the organic love for our uncommon Senator Jarigbe Agom, he won all 10 wards. No doubt, Sen Jarigbe Agom is the most popular politician in the Northern Senatorial District as elections and researches have proved that time and again.
In 2027, while the party has the power to give tickets upon which candidates run for office, the leader of the APC in the state and the state executive members must do its due diligence and project candidates with public acceptance and high performance index. In a normal situation a student who failed class woefully is supposed to be withdrawn from the class or at best repeat the same class and not to be desperately scheming and struggling for promotion ahead of another student who got distinction. This scenario also works in the school of politics. We can’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. Perhaps it is only in our senatorial zone where failures want to be served ala carte and carry go system to the detriment of a man who has turned many wards and local governments to construction sites. They are afraid of an open, free, and fair contest with Jariwonder like the way the rat is afraid of a cat. They want to eat their cake and have it.
As I said sometime ago on similar issues, Senator Jarigbe is a very simple and focused leader. He has not come to the party to fight anyone for the party structure but asking for one thing – which is to be given the ticket to run for the same senatorial seat he came to the party with. The office he is already holding. Just like in other climes where defectors of the calibre of Senator Jarigbe, taking into cognisance his acceptability, capacity, unmatched performance and political sagacity, are often given automatic tickets to fly the party’s flag and coast the party to victory. We should recall that in 2023, APC performed poorly in the Presidential, National Assembly elections especially in Cross River North Senatorial District because a Senator Jarigbe was in the opposition, defeated the party in power and won in a landslide. That ugly scenario would only change come 2027 with Senator Jarigbe on the ballot on the platform of APC.
Distinguished Sen Jarigbe Agom has come to give our president, governor, and others all the needed and necessary support from our zone. Let’s not take it for granted. We should not be tempted to sell our winning horse to buy a goat. Let’s not exchange our German storey building for a mud house. Let’s not sell our lion to buy a dog. Let’s not sell our Lionel Messi to buy Kano Pillars F.C local player in a very crucial match. Let’s not sell our wrists/hands to buy a watch. If we ever do so, which wrist or hand do we wear the watch? When Jari was working, the unserious aspirants were drinking whisky at their comfort zone and expecting everyone in our senatorial district to get drunk with them even without participating in the drinking jamboree.
A bird at hand is worth more than a thousand in the bush. My passionate appeal to our governor and leader of the party at the state is APC senatorial ticket in the northern senatorial district should be given to Distinguished Senator Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe for easy win before 12pm on election day by God’s grace. A word is enough for the wise. This is my sincere advice and genuine position.
Gabriel Bravo Oluohu (JP)
APC Stakeholder since 2015
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