Agba’s arbitrary incarceration is loudly endorsed by the same timid state House of Assembly that hastily embraced a fraudulent superhighway project that was designed to plunge several generations of Cross Riverians into a deep pool of debt and slavery for a sustained period of 180 years – approximately two centuries! It comes as no surprise, therefore, that not a single member of the House of Assembly has called out the governor for his incessant abuse of power.
Perhaps one of the most horrifying news in today’s Nigeria,
besides the barbaric decimation of innocent citizens by overly coddled
terrorist organisations running amok across the country, is the continuous
incarceration of journalist, Agba Jalingo. Agba remains in captivity solely on
the executive order of Governor Ben Ayade for rightly demanding that the
governor comes clean on the N500m microfinance bank funds that mysteriously
disappeared under the governor’s watch.
Agba’s arbitrary incarceration is loudly endorsed by the
same timid state House of Assembly that hastily embraced a fraudulent
superhighway project that was designed to plunge several generations of Cross
Riverians into a deep pool of debt and slavery for a sustained period of 180
years – approximately two centuries! It comes as no surprise, therefore, that
not a single member of the House of Assembly has called out the governor for
his incessant abuse of power.
The political class in Cross River, with special emphasis on
members of the House of Assembly, have all looked the other way and even revel
in Agba’s perceived predicament owing to his desire to consistently insist on
accountability and transparency from all political office holders in the state.
Governor Ayade’s metamorphosis from a senator into a
full-blown dictator remains an inscrutable mystery. His phantom belief that
those who elected him into office are without the competence to ask him crucial
questions about the decisions he makes on their behalf is unacceptable and a
gross abuse of his powers as governor. I have extensively written elsewhere
that those who abhor public scrutiny are unfit to make themselves available for
election into public offices.
Agba Jalingo’s detention on the direct order of Ben Ayade
symbolises the incarceration of all Cross Riverians. The governor is sending an
unequivocal message to the Cross River electorates, laced with unmitigated
impudence, that he is the emperor of the state and therefore should not be
questioned.
As I write, roads, public schools, hospitals and other
infrastructures in Cross River State are in total shambles with the governor
clearly unwilling to resuscitate them. In spite of this, the Ayade regime
readily mobilises to arrest critics of his regime across Nigerian cities, drive
them by road to Calabar, and then claim afterwards that they were arrested by
the Federal Government, as though federal high court divisions are non-existent
in the different Nigerian cities where these critics are arrested.
So the question is: why is it that the governor goes to any
length and at the expense of Cross Riverians in his determination to arbitrarily
arrest his critics but unwilling to show a similar determination when it comes
to giving life to infrastructures in the state?
The conspiracy against Agba Jalingo became even clearer when
Justice Simon Amobeda, who has long recused himself from Agba’s case,
reportedly refused to release his case file to the Chief Judge for
re-assignment and subsequently travelled with it during his holiday in a bid to
keep the journalist in perpetual captivity. Impunity has never been this bold,
this daring!
So, dear reader, as you go about your work and business,
always remember that a journalist and activist, Agba Jalingo, has been held in
captivity since August 22, 2019 by Governor Ben Ayade of Peoples Democratic
Party for demanding accountability, transparency and good governance for the
people of Cross River State.
Elias Ozikpu is an activist and a professional playwright,
novelist, essayist and polemicist
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