Recently, Senator Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, the senator representing Cross River North in the senate, defected from the PDP and announced his membership of the APC. TNN spoke with him on his defection and issues revolving round his activities in the senate.
The interview was processed by RUTH NWORIE.
Excerpts:
On the floor of the Senate today, you formally defected to the APC. How come there is this wide gap between when you first announced your defection and when you are formally defecting on the floor of the Senate?
Today was a formal announcement. There was no announcement before. What we had were consultations.
But on that day, immediately after the senate sitting, you went to see President Tinubu. And today, you announced your formal defection on the floor of the senate. So, what happened between then and today?
I have not been around. This is my first day in the chamber after the meeting with Mr President I had to go back and consult with my people and meet with the governor of my state who is the leader of the party in my state, His Excellency, Senator Prince Bassey and other stakeholders of the state and also discuss with members of my former party, PDP, who are my ardent supporters.
So, what did you tell the governor and what did the governor tell you?
I told the governor I was coming to join him in APC to work with him and to support him. He welcomed me wholeheartedly to the party.
There have been insinuations that you left some of your supporters in the PDP in the middle of nowhere, people you had discouraged from leaving the PDP, but you left them in the PDP and moved to the APC. How are you able to manage that scenario?
No. When I was in PDP, I refused people from moving, because we thought there was still some hope for the PDP. Now that I am in APC, I am moving all my people to APC. They are my supporters.
They are saying you did not tell them before you left?
No. I was back home consulting. They know that we are moving. In a couple of days, you will see a number of people that will move to the APC officially. It is at my instance.
I will take two cases. The case of Vena Ikem and the case of Zana Akpagu, the former VC of UNICAL. Zana left the APC to join the PDP and was supporting you. Vena has been your major pillar in the PDP. Now, Zana will have to return to the APC he had earlier dumped because of you? And Vena will have to join you in the APC too? What is their body language like?
Professor Zana Akpagu left APC for the PDP to realize his ambition and that time, we did not have a premonition that PDP was going to collapse irreconcilably. We had some differences but we still had to…, at some point, were living in denial of the fact that this situation was incurably bad but we must face reality at this point in time.
The PDP has hit a brick wall. There are various factions. Look at the national level and the state. Some people are stoking the troubles because they don’t want peace. I remember the last time the FCT minister tried to make peace, but some people were obstinate about it and they do not allow that to suffice. At that point in time, there was nothing we can do, I had to move.
Professor Zana left the APC for PDP and I don’t think he will be leaving the PDP for the APC because I have had conversations with him. For the chairman of my former party, Barrister Venatius Ikem, I was with him over the weekend after seeing the governor and I tried to talk to him, why it wasn’t necessary to stay back in PDP and he is thinking about it and I think in no distance time, he is going to join me. I will continue to persuade him.
What do you think is the problem with this PDP?
The problem with PDP is just an ego trip. I think if they are able to sit down with the FCT minister who is a member of the party (this happened before the minister was expelled) and a major stakeholder who sustained this party for a very long time, things will get better. Most of the governors have consented to supporting our president but they are nocturnal about it and begin to blame His Excellency Wike, the FCT minister, for trying to undermine the party because he has said openly that we should support the president for second term and thereafter, the seat will move to the North and that is very reasonable. I think that is a very noble decision and he is doing it openly and some people, for whatever reasons, they are doing it clandestinely and putting their ego over and above the party and that is not good. We cannot be pretending and lying to ourselves at this point in time.
People call you ‘governor of northern Cross River State.’ I don’t know why. How did it start?
I don’t know about that but I have corrected anyone that used. It is a misnomer. It is wrong. It is not conventional. You cannot be calling a senator like me governor of the north. It is not normal. I am the senator representing the north. I think some people who are mischievous or overly excited use all of that.
But what do you really think made people to be calling you governor of the north?
Am not a telepath to know their mind. But if you call me a performing senator, I will say yes because I know I have gone out of my way to do a lot of things for my people and I wish to doing more and I have always put my shoes and myself in the shoes of my people. So, I know what to do. I have a proper needs assessment mechanism I have a good interpersonal relationship with my people. So ,I can feel the needs of my people. I am not insensitive. I work closely with my people, even much more than my brother, the former governor, even when he was in office as governor. We have empirical indices and I know that former Governor Ayade was not interested in service delivery. He was more or less very happy with being a governor or being called governor of the state and at some point, his ambition was to become the richest man in Cross River State and that compromised the very essence of service he was delivering to our people.
Are saying Ayade did not do well for his people?
No. He didn’t do well. Without mincing words, he didn’t do well for his people. I give you an example. The road that leads to Obudu which is his own place, is in a state of disrepair, after so much money has been paid and all of that. And recently, the governor disbursed some money for that road. The records are there and they are verifiable.
2027 is coming and there are signals that Ayade will come back to contest. I see a more interesting fight between the two of you in 2027. Who do you think will blink first?
Well, I don’t know, but you know power comes from God. I can not undermine the former governor in any way, but power comes from God and when we get there, the people will decide who they want. It is a function of res sequitur. You can see what I did and still doing, and what Ayade did and it is not a matter of being sesquipedalian is a matter of what you have done and it will speak for you. You know it’s evident that Ayade didn’t really do much. I have my small card and I think that will speak for me. Our people will not vote for the man that had a bigger opportunity and misused it, against a man that had a small opportunity and maximized it to the benefit of the people. I don’t think so.
You once contested against Prof Steve Odey who had Ayade’s support as a sitting governor. You removed him from the seat. In 2023, you defeated Ayade himself to keep the seat. What was the magic?
What I have, which I think they don’t have, is the ability to deliver the dividends of democracy to my people; then the accessibility. I am result-oriented. I’m empathetic. I came to serve and not to enjoy the paraphernalia of office. Basically, we must have our values as a people. We must also have our values as public office holders. Once you undermine that and you think you can take the people for granted, you get your results in the field and that is the truth.
When you are talking of empathy, there are people who will say that Prof. Ben Ayade was very empathetic with the people; which was why they used to call him food on the table governor. How do you reconcile that?
Those things were for the optics, very transient, not enduring, not sustainable. We should do things that are enduring. Those things were Greek Gifts aimed at achieving whatever political interest there was at the time and particularly self seeking. Juxtapose this: What is the number of Cross Riverians who are unemployed who cannot put food on their tables?
Look at their population, juxtapose it with the number of people he was able to enrol in his food on the table agenda. It is very, very negligible, compared to number of persons we have. It is not how many people you give ₦30,000 a month that matters. How many people can you really give that to? It’s about leaving things on ground that is sustainable, that will affect the common person, the common old woman in the village, in our various villages and all of that. You go to the various villages and you see people drinking brown water, suffering from Benazir, and hurts and you say you are serving the people? Governance is supposed to be taken to the doorsteps of those who need it the most and not just the comedy of it.
But those people that you say Ayade did not serve them well are the same people who came out last week to receive him in Calabar
I bet you that 80 per cent of the people you saw there were not those who vote in Cross River north. Some of them are Igbo who will vote in Calabar. I saw a group of people from the carnival groups, young girls who came out with almost nothing on their bodies. We are in politics. What we saw there was not a political gathering, but a group of comedians and most of them are Igbo girls or girls from cross River State who are not from the north and are registered to vote in the north. Those were most of the people I saw there, apart from the state party chairman who is a direct beneficiary of the former governor, His Excellency Ayade. I didn’t see major politicians from the north at that place. Maybe they did it for the optics and to mislead the gullible public or people in Abuja, that he was popular. But I think those who understand the politics of the day will know that was just chair tricks.
Is that to say that you were not intimidated by the crowd you saw?
How could I be intimidated? If you look at the proper politicians that came to receive me when I arrived at the airport and I didn’t fund it. It was organic, you would have seen the difference. It was very, very organic and so I deal with politicians, I deal with my people from Cross River North, that is the truth. I am a proper politician. When I see someone playing proper politics, I know. As I told you before, what they did for Ayade was a kind of comedy. You cannot mislead us. The politicians understood what went on there that day. So, that is not a problem.
If there is a debate between you and Ayade, how do you think it will go. Would you even look forward to that kind of a debate?
Your guess is as good as mine. One will come with high sounding words and the other will come with very realistic positions. As you are speaking to me, you know who will come with very high sounding words that will amount to nothing and the one that will be realistic. You know that already.
In 2027, what should Cross River north people look forward to?
They should look forward to returning me to the Senate to serve them better and not in optical illusion.
