From Judex Okoro, Calabar
Ahead of National Assembly elections across the country, Cross River Northern groups, the Coordinators of Movement for the Restoration of Good Governance (MFROGG) and Northern Senatorial District Youth Renaissance Assembly, (SSDYRA), Messers Emmanuel Agba and Raymond Takom, respectively, have endorsed Sen Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, for Senate.
The groups said for justice, equity and fairness in Cross River north, Jarigbe, who hails from Ogoja local government area, should be allowed to continue in the House of Representatives, adding that for over five decades, the Ogoja people have been marginalised in the political scheme of things even when it has served as the old Ogoja provincial headquarters which include the present Ebonyi State.
In separate interviews in Calabar at the weekend, the Coordinator of Movement for the Restoration of Good Governance (MFROGG) Comrade Emmanuel Agba, said all other four local government areas of Obanliku, Obudu, Bekwarra and Yala have occupied the senate in the persons of late Sen. Joseph Wayas(1979-1983) and Adede Musa (1999-2003) Prof. Ben Ayade (2011-2015), Sen. Kanu Agabi, Greg Ngaji (2004-2011), and late Rose Oko (2015- 2019) respectively with Sen. Jarigbe from Ogoja (2021-).
Agba said from the above statistics, it is clear that Ogoja has been marginalised and therefore Jarigbe should be allowed to continue in the Senate in line with the spirit of brotherhood and equity.
According to him, the All Progressives Congress (APC) should have also zoned their senate slot to Ogoja rather to Obudu that have taken their turn to avoid the bad blood being generated in the zone.
He said the zone had given Governor Ben Ayade four years in the Senate and eight years as Governor of the state, adding that they had expected him to retire after thirteen years of political sojourn.
“We gave him four years to represent us in the Senate. He sponsored about 40 bills with none having a direct impact on his senatorial district. But today, with Jarigbe almost all the wards in the north have at least five projects attracted by the incumbent. So, we hereby endorse him to continue his good works.
Insisting that there is no vacancy in the senatorial seat in the north, the Coordinator of Northern Senatorial District Youth Renaissance Assembly, (SSDYRA), Comrade Raymond Takom, said they would not make the mistake again of sending Governor Ben Ayade back to Senat because they had given him four years (2011-2015) and he did not do well because all the over 40 bills he sponsored had no direct impact on his people.
Takom, who described Ayade’s eight-year tenure as a waste to the northern senatorial district, explained that the zone is rather littered with uncompleted projects including the cargo airport in Obudu, the British Canadian university, Kakum Obudu, the dual carriage mini-super highway, the Polytechnic on social media but yet to take off, the Bekwarra groundnut factory and lots of unfulfilled promises.
Expressing shock that despite all these the APC senatorial candidate, Governor Ben Ayade, is still warming up to return to the Senate, he called on Ayade to forget about the senate and plan his retirement.
According to him, “the current occupant is doing well and the people are solidly behind him. For now, we don’t have any vacancy in the Senate.”