OPINION ARTICLE JOSEPH AGBOR AND THE SEARCH FOR REDEMPTION IN AKAMKPA II
By: Ntui Ntui
There comes a time in the life of a people when silence becomes a sin and indifference a dangerous disease. That time, it would seem, has come upon the resilient people of Akamkpa II State Constituency. Truthfully, the land is lush. The forests are full. The earth beneath our feet is rich with resources that feed the appetite of the nation and fatten the purse of the state. Yet, paradoxically, the people remain stranded in suffering, abandoned amidst abundance, and forgotten in the feast they helped to prepare.
As one journeys through the sorrowful stretches of Abung, the battered belly of Okarara, the melancholy paths of Mkpot and Ekonganaku, through the weary woods of Ikpai Ward, and down to the neglected neighbourhoods of Iku and adjoining communities, one cannot but weep. The roads are not roads in the real sense of the word, they are rivers of ruin, corridors of calamity, and cruel reminders of governmental neglect. In the rainy season, they become muddy monuments to misery. In the dry season, they throw up dust enough to blind hope itself.
Now, one is compelled to ask: how long shall the people continue to carry the cross while others wear the crown? How long shall communities that contribute immensely to the wealth of Cross River State and Nigeria remain buried beneath the burden of bad roads, broken promises and barren leadership? An elder once said that when the fence consistently fails, the goats will feast freely on the farm. Akamkpa II has suffered too long from leaders who spoke loudly during campaigns but whispered weakly in parliament. This is why the name Joseph Ekamoti Agbor now resonates across the hills and hamlets of Akamkpa II like the early sound of rainfall upon a thirsty roof.
Does Joseph Agbor need an introduction to his people? No, he does not. He is a son of the soil, Oban-born by blood and Akamkpa-bred by burden and brotherhood. He walked these paths as a child. He drank from these streams. He sat in the classrooms of this constituency for his preliminary education and grew among the people whose pains he now seeks to represent. This is necessary to buttress that he knows where the shoe pinches because he has trekked on the same soil as the people.
In him, many see not merely a politician but a product of the people. A man deeply indigenous in identity yet impressively exposed in intellect. He combines the calmness of culture with the confidence of competence. Educated, enlightened and energetic, Joseph Agbor possesses the vibrant voice and parliamentary poise required to speak truth in the chambers of power without trembling like a leaf before the wind.
And perhaps more importantly, he is a diehard devotee of the All Progressives Congress, a loyal labourer in the vineyard of the party at all levels and a core supporter of Governor Bassey Edet Otu, whom he refers to as his boss and political benefactor. His loyalty to the Governor and the people’s first agenda, remains unquestionable and unimpeachable. Agbor has remained consistent, committed and courageous. Loyalty, after all, is the lubricant of leadership.
It is imperative to state that the people of Akamkpa II do not merely need another representative, they need a rescuer. They need a bridge-builder, not a blame-bearer. They need a voice that can rise above rhetoric and wrestle development from the reluctant hands of bureaucracy. They need a man who can sit in parliament and speak not in borrowed accents but with the authentic authority of a people abandoned for too long. We must admit that the truth is as stubborn as the iroko tree. This implies that no community can progress when its roads regress. No people can prosper when access is absent. Traders struggle to move goods. Farmers watch harvests rot in helplessness. Pregnant women travel through terror. Schoolchildren study under the shadow of suffering. Yet election after election, promises parade proudly before the people only to vanish like vapour after victory.
Nonetheless, every dark night, our elders remind us, eventually bows before the stubbornness of dawn. Could this then be the dawn Akamkpa II has been waiting for? The people must now look beyond empty eloquence and embrace earnest engagement. They must find in Joseph Ekamoti Agbor a dependable defender, a practical patriot, and a courageous custodian of their collective aspiration. For leadership is not about loudness, it is about listening. It is not about titles, it is about tangible transformation.
Sincerely, Akamkpa II deserves roads that connect, not roads that condemn. It deserves representation that remembers, not representation that disappears. It deserves development that touches the villages as much as the cities. And in Joseph Agbor, the constituency may finally have a son prepared to carry its cries from the forgotten forests of Oban to the formidable floor of the Cross River State House of Assembly.
The drumbeats are growing louder across the constituency. The people are awakening to the possibility that a new chapter can indeed be written. And history teaches us that when the people finally find their voice, no force can forever silence their future.
Joseph Ekamoti Agbor is here. Akamkpa II State Constituency, Cross River State, search for a redeemer no more.
