by crossriverwatch admin
Undoubtedly I am a poor and pathetic sleeper. I don’t know why I am such a pathetic sleeper but something tells me it is a trait I genetically inherited from my mother.
When we newly married my wife used to rebuke me when I would arouse at about 1a.m. to tune to the BBC African Service and in the process disturb her blissful repose.
This was when the GSM phone was yet to be introduced in the country and the Internet service was run by a few business centers in the country.
Last night I woke up at about 11:30 p.m. and had to reach for my blackberry Q 10 smart phone to surf the network for the latest local and international news.
After I read all the major newspaper web sites I had to open my facebook account. I was pleasantly surprised when somebody I least expected sent me an invitation to be his friend. I promptly accepted the invitation.
The person was not less a personage than Mr. Godwin Jeddy Agba, the General Manager (Crude) NNPC who is reputed or rumored to be a frontline Cross River State governorship aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for the 2015 general election.
It is widely believed that his ambition and aspiration is the immediate cause of the seeming polarization in the PDP in Cross River State notably between Governor Liyel Imoke and Senator Victor Ndoma- Egba (SAN). It is believed that Governor Imoke is not well disposed towards the ambition of Godwin Jeddy Agba.
I am a committed and unrepentant member of the All Progressives Congress and therefore the rumblings in the PDP in Cross River State concerning the governorship race should not bother me.
I want to say that I am stoutly and vehemently opposed to any thing PDP. But staying aloof from the happenings in the PDP in my State with regard to the governorship contest will amount to political naivety so I am concerned with the prospects of the candidacy of Mr. Agba as much as any other member of the PDP.
I have known from the distance Mr. Agba. When I entered Mary Knoll College, Okuku, Ogoja (now Yala) In 1976 September, as a starry eyed youngster, Mr. Agba was in the Higher School class (Advanced level).
He was one of the Senior Prefects or so. However he soon got into trouble with the school authorities over his “radicalism”.
Agba’s younger brothers, Peter and Timothy are my friends. Peter was my senior in Mary Knoll while Timothy and I were school mates in the University of Jos. Agba later studied at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaira. He joined the Federal Public Service soon after graduation.
He shot into limelight when he was appointed a Special Assistant to one time Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, Air Vice Marshall Hamza Abduallahi during the military Presidency of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida in the early 1990s. Agba is one of the few civil servants of Cross River origin in the Federal public service perceived as a high flyer.
This has been proven by his recent appointment as one of the Executive Directors in the NNPC. He was honored recently with a National Award. He has the cognate and requisite administrative experience to ably pilot the affairs of the State. But he is perceived as standoffish and arrogant. He is also seen as too elitist.
Agba’s father is the Paramount Ruler of Obudu Local Government Area. Uti Jeddy Agba has been a traditional ruler for the past five decades or so.
I see him as an outsider because he has not related very well with a wide spectrum of the people of Cross River State for a long time. But this in itself should not be a draw back. I am glad that Mr. Agba has now come out of his political cocoon and seclusion.
He has commenced the selling of his candidacy if what I saw in his facebook campaign is anything to go by.
This has surely put paid to intense speculation about his candidacy. One question that we shall confront him with will be: How did you use your extensive connections and networks in the Federal public service to assist young people across the State get employment in all the strategic departments that you had served?
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