By Chuks Agube, Esq.
Election season is here again, and with it comes the familiar noise. Across Abi and Yakurr, old faces are returning with new banners, new slogans, and new promises. It is a season where people will tell us many things and show us many things. But Abi-Yakurr has grown wiser. In this season, we must remember one simple principle: show your evidence.
Votes in 2027 will not be given for noise or for beautiful posters. They will be given for evidence for projects that can be seen and for a record that can be verified by any man or woman in our villages.
For our federal constituency, that evidence has a name, and it is Rt. Hon. Alex Egbona. He is not a stranger to service. His journey did not start in Abuja. As Chief of Staff to Governor Liyel Imoke, he coordinated government at the highest level and proved that he could manage responsibility and deliver results. That foundation prepared him for the National Assembly, where he has now served for almost eight years and grown in both capacity and relevance.
Today, he stands as Chairman of the House Committee on Speciality Healthcare, a position that has placed Abi and Yakurr on the national map for health interventions. Through that office and through his diligence in the Green Chamber, our people have benefited from federal medical equipment, health partnerships, constituency projects, educational support, and youth empowerment programs. These are not promises on paper. They are realities in our communities, from Abi to Yakurr, and the people are witnesses.
This is the difference between proof and empty talk. Some will only appear during festivals with handouts and branded materials and disappear the next day. Others will be loud in the media but absent when the real work of representation is required. We must also remember that we had a painful history of bad representation from the same people who are now returning and acting as saints. Abi-Yakurr deserves consistency. We deserve a representative who is present in grief, in joy, and in hardship. A leader whose commitment is not an event but a lifestyle.
Alex is the people’s candidate. Let this be clear. He does not belong to one group or one town. He belongs to the people of Abi and Yakurr. For eight years, he has been accessible. He has been responsive to the people. He has attended to our needs. He has carried our voice to Abuja. This is not about the party. This is about service to the people.
More importantly, we deserve leadership that invests in people. Development is not measured only by concrete and tar. It is measured by the number of our children in school on scholarship, the number of our children employed in federal, state, and local agencies, the number of our youths trained with skills, and the number of families whose lives have been lifted. When we place records side by side, the contrast is clear. While some can point to nothing done for human development, we have a list of names, programs, and interventions to show.
At this point in our national life, experience in the National Assembly is not a luxury. It is a necessity. The House runs on ranking, on relationships, and on institutional memory. To begin again with a new person is to return to zero. To retain a tested hand is to build on the goodwill, the committees, and the access already secured in Abuja.
A third term for Rt. Hon. Egbona means deeper influence, more federal projects, more appointments for our sons and daughters, and more resources coming home to Abi and Yakurr. To abandon that for an experiment is to gamble with our future. We have tried that road before, and we know where it leads. It leads to stagnation and to years wasted with nothing to show. That is why this is not the time to go backwards. This is the time to move forward on the foundation that has already been laid.
To continue with Rt. Hon. Alex Egbona is not an option. It is a must for Abi-Yakurr Federal Constituency. This is not about sentiment. It is about securing our place and attracting more for our people.
We must also say clearly that the old politics of a few persons sitting to decide for the entire constituency will not stand in 2027. The people of Abi and Yakurr are awake. The power to choose now belongs to the voter at the polling unit. There is no imposition from anywhere and no writing of figures from anywhere. The ballot will speak.
In the end, this election will not be about who changes the party or who talks the most. It will be about who has proof. Abi-Yakurr needs a representative who understands the system, who has access, and who has already demonstrated loyalty to our people. We need continuity to complete what has started and to attract what is still to come.
For the sake of our children, for the sake of development, and for the sake of progress, the choice is clear.
Let us return Rt. Hon. Alex Egbona for a third term so that the work continues and the ledger of leadership keeps growing.
- Agube, a lawyer, sent this from Imabana, Abi LGA, Cross River State
