While guesses and permutations heighten in the run in to the senatorial bye-election for the vacant Cross River North Senatorial seat in Nigeria’s Senate, Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, representing Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, has frowned at plans he says, are in place by persons he did not name, to foist a particular candidate on the senatorial district to fill the position, made vacant by the death of Rose Oko, who hitherto occupied the seat.
Jarigbe who made this submission in a live Facebook broadcast yesterday also added that the North as a political entity, must ideally come together as a people and agree on who will represent her so that the area will not continue to remain “so impoverished and subservient”. He maintained further that, “we are in a democracy, we persuade, we lobby people to see reasons” and will support this approach, adding clearly that, “I do not support the foisting of candidates”.
On the death of the former senator, Rose Oko, the Member of Parliament, MP, frowned at the almost immediate political talk and moves made to replace her, describing this as “insensitive to talk about replacement”, when she had not even been brought back to Nigeria for burial.
After reeling out a long list of eminent Cross Riverians, founding fathers, who fought for the socio-economic development of the area, he went on to point out that what they attracted to the senatorial district has outlived them and that the present generation “…must not remain subservient, we must speak out and assert ourselves as a people or posterity will hold it against us.”
Jarigbe who clearly threw his hat into the senatorial battle with the trending coded message, “I refuse to belong to a conquered generation”, advised the leadership of the PDP in the state to play by the rules, work at throwing up a candidate who will deliver, “a senator who is for all and not one who will serve a particular interest.”