By Aplefe Ojong/Jeremiah Archibong/Christiana Ukung Alawa
In a rare feat of public criticism, former governor of Cross River State, Mr. Donald Duke today publicly took his successor and friend of many years, Senator Liyel Imoke to the washers accusing him of dividing the PDP family in the state with insincerity in his leadership.
Apart from the fact that Donald Duke, who flew into Calabar this morning along with Jedy Agba and wife aboard a private jet, has declared his support for the governorship ambition of Jedy Agba who Imoke does not want to succeed him, Duke took a swipe at governor Imoke for drawing the state backward and said Jedy Agba is on a mission to rescue the state.
Duke was speaking today at a reception in honor of the Obudu Prince at the Holy Child Secondary School, Calabar.
He said, “Goddy Agba is on a rescue mission and it is the beginning of another day, a time for development, a time to reunify our people who have been divided by insincerity of the political leadership in the state.”
He disclosed that it was unfortunate that the PDP family he built has been bastardized and reduced to a three man affairs where the rest are house boys and house girls.
He explained that a leader should inspire confidence in the people, stressing that the people should not guess what a leader or head of a family is doing or about to do but that they should know, adding that Jedy Agba has an enormous task to rebuild what has been destroyed.
“If you are leading people they should be sure what you stand for or not stand for but when people are not sure of you, by you saying one thing here and another thing there, you would lose respect, you would introduce confusion and very soon everything will scatter.
“In every organization, there is a head and we must respect the head but you see, respect is earned and not awarded. Today, we are gradually retarding back to the era of the old brigade.”
He said a leader who gives 100 percent assurance to anybody who consults him but never keeps his promises will always create enemies for himself as well as erode the confidence the people repose on him, explaining that a leader and head of a family should have the capacity to build cohesion and love among members of the family to ensure that over the years, the family grows larger in number and not shrink as is the case in Cross River State PDP.
Duke queried why Imoke was encouraging every other aspirant to contest but singled out Jedy Agba and said he is not a member of the family, “Families expand and any family that does not expand will go extinct and our family will expand. So when in 2007, I heard monkey work monkey chop, I asked one of my friends, Gershom Bassey who is a monkey.
“I thought we were elevating Cross River to higher heights; why are we describing ourselves as monkeys and even today with their monkey work, monkey chop slogan, and now eight years after, we have discovered that they are only two monkeys and these two monkeys are very smart. I owe you one thing and that is the truth. One monkey calls itself SERMATECH and the other monkey calls itself Lilleker, those are the nicknames of the two monkeys.
“In 2007, we had a transition and it was a seamless transition and nobody was in doubt where I stood. People came to me and said they wanted to run and I said run, it may be your destiny. I am not God and cannot stand on anybody’s way but that did not preclude me from expressing myself and stating where I stood but when people come to you and you encourage everybody without telling them where you stand you will have a problem”.
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