Every time you are able to expose evil, whether in your family or in your street, or in your community, you reduce the potential of that evil to cause further evil. Evil thrives when we talk about it in hush tones. When we continue to fear it. When we fail to challenge it and find a solution to it. Everything that is revealed becomes ordinary. And it is time to solve one of the axis of evil holding our State, Cross River in the jugular, Franko Ayade.
Since the day Governor Ayade pronounced his brother as his Co-governor during a Catholic Mass in Kakum, he has taken over the running of government in our State in a manner that almost everybody in our State is afraid of Franko Ayade, including his brother the governor. It’s making his head swell. Governor Donald Duke And Governor Liyel Imoke were governors of our State before Ayade. They also had grown-up brothers and sisters while they were in office. None of their brothers were such a nuisance as Franko Ayade has become in Cross River.
Ordinarily, Franko shouldn’t be worth talking about because he hasn’t done anything of worth for himself other than hiding under the shadow of his brother, the governor. But because he wields so much power and influence over decisions of government even when he does not hold any position in government, he has become a person of interest. He has gotten a few EFCC invitations in the past but the investigations have been stalled principally because his brother is still in power. More petitions are being written to call him to account. But the volume of money he has access to is making him want to put everybody’s head in his armpit.
Franko decides who becomes everything in government. From who, who becomes commissioner to who gets the Councillorship ticket to Chairmanship ticket to House of Reps tickets to Senatorial and even governorship tickets. Every contract Governor Ayade awards must get Franko’s nod before execution. He has cornered most of the contracts through his brother’s construction company. He moves around with police convoy. Sprays crispy notes in almost every event. Also controls a large number of thugs and gangsters. And his only entitlement to all these perquisites is that he is the governor’s brother. Nothing else.
His latest misadventure was his decision to send policemen to my Lagos home to arrest me and move me to Abuja, after vowing that he will deal with me. He has been doing this to several people back home. They send their police lackeys to go arrest anyone that has any argument with them from any part of the country and lock them up very often and for me too, that wasn’t their first time. While I am vigorously pursuing the necessary legal steps to address his effrontery in court, one thing I won’t stop doing is to continue to expose Franko and his shenanigans to my audience.
It is 253 days to the end of his brother’s disastrous reign as our governor. That’s not a long time again and his co-governorship will end. And Franko remains the number one reason why his brother will go down as Cross River’s worst governor. Instead of vowing to deal with me, let Franko worry for his future. Let him worry about the lonely months he will spend in EFCC and jail cells after the curtains are closed on them from Peregrino. Let him think about how he will pay his lawyers and defend himself in the courts he will be dragged to. That should be the direction of his vows right now and this advice is strictly for him, from me.
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes in from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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