By CrossRiverWatch Admin
The media has been ladened of late with negative thoughts, assumptions and write-ups about Comrade Asu Okang the Cross River State Commissioner for Youth and Sports.
The name Asu Okang has been trending on the media especially online and the social media for all the negative reasons of late.
Despite all his laudable achievements and moves in his 2 years in office as commissioner, there is a silent search light at one corner that is always ready to pick any slight negative fault of his and blow it to the public, a situation that leaves me pondering with series of questions like Why Asu? Why always him? Wetin dey really happen sef?
Comrade Asu Okang is one of the youngest commissioners in the Ayade’s cabinet and the youngest commissioner to have ever mounted the seat of the honorable commissioner for youth and sports development in the state and was appointed even before the inception of the #NotTooYoungToRun campaign, something Ayade’s predecessors never considered.
This alone should be a pride for the youths in the state as the government of Senator Ben Ayade had already seen ability in the youths even before the campaign but unfortunately there are even the ones gunning for Mr. Commissioners neck and initiating all strategies to activate the pull down syndrome.
Funnily enough it is the same set of youths who have been beating the drums for the #NotTooYoungToRun campaign but yet fail to support their own.
Yesterday, I read a post on CrossRiverwatch describing him as “The Commissioner of Slaps” and I asked myself, was that really necessary? Why going down to dig all that? Why want your readers to read all that if there’s nothing to gain from it?
For me I think the only reason one will want to kill a fellow human is for personal gains.
Was that News? because as far as I’m concerned journalist are supposed to report and publish news but this to me looks like giving a dog a bad name just to hang it and if that’s the case in this scenario then obviously there might be some forces from some angle fanning the flames of fire. And I ask again why?
Comrade Asu Okang is a perfect example of an aspiring youth who graduated and made it early in life through hard work, got married and settled down even before being appointed the commissioner not like some politicians whose relevance and all they achieve in life can easily be traced to politics; A perfect model for the youths in Cross River State he is.
But, I am not shaken by the antecedents of those seeking for his head because one outstanding attribute I know about the young commissioner is that he is like his boss, His Excellency Senator Benedict Ayade, brave, dogged, vibrant and a goal getter who never gets distracted by the antecedents of his defamers.
He was a few years ahead of me back then at the famous Unical Staff School and also my senior student at Federal Government College Ikom, that’s how long I have known him and how much I know about him and can say authoritatively without fear or favour that the Asu Okang I know is an achiever and limits breaker.
No wonder his Excellency spotted him during one of his campaigns and found him worthy to mount the seat of the commissioner for youths, like it is said in my local parlance “Na only winch dey sabi winch when e see am”.
My dear commissioner, let not the distractions of your distractors distract you, though I am confident that you can’t be distracted, I know you too well.
For my dear defamers, antagonist, falsifiers and backbiters, I will tell you a phrase I learnt sometime by Habeeb Akande ~ “Insecure people put others down to raise themselves up.”
Missang Akpet is a journalist and reports for the state owned Cross River Broadcasting Corporation in Calabar.