Agba Jalingo’s latest screed against the Northern Cross River Coalition (NORTHCCO) is yet another predictable performance from a man whose entire career is built on scavenging for controversies to justify his relevance. A professional hireling, a jobber-for-rent, and a perennial lapdog of a certain self-anointed emperor of Northern Cross River politics, Jalingo has mastered the art of barking on command. His supposed critique is not an honest interrogation of governance but the tantrum of a man desperate to please his master while feeding off the crumbs of patronage.
With the audacity of a town crier who has long sold his voice to the highest bidder, he questions the intentions of those forming a coalition, conveniently ignoring the fact that he himself has never stood for anything beyond the dictates of his paymasters. He decries power-seeking, yet he exists solely as an appendage of those who wield it. He sneers at governance failures, yet his only contribution to the discourse is the ceaseless wailing of a man who thrives on the very dysfunction he pretends to oppose. A parasite cannot exist without a host, and Jalingo has made a career of latching onto others while contributing nothing of his own.
His attempt to create an artificial schism between politics and governance is both lazy and dishonest. To acquire power is the first step toward governance—something even a pedestrian observer understands. But Jalingo, in his desperate attempt to discredit NORTHCCO, pretends that politics is an unholy pursuit while governance is a utopia separate from it. This false dichotomy is laughable coming from a man who has spent years sucking relevance from political machinations, leeching off the very system he claims to abhor. His newfound moral indignation is not only misplaced but reeks of selective amnesia.
Yet, the most amusing part of his diatribe is his pretense at being a voice of the people. For a man whose pockets have been lined by a single political benefactor for years, this is nothing short of comedy. He speaks of failed politicians while ignoring the fact that his own master, the so-called godfather of Northern Cross River, has been at the center of the region’s stagnation. But, of course, the hireling cannot bite the hand that feeds him. His loyalty is not to truth, not to progress, but to the sustenance of his own parasitic existence.
And then comes his soothsayer act—his prophecy that NORTHCCO will crumble under its own weight. How convenient. This is the same tired script he has used time and again, hoping to create chaos where there is none. But here’s the truth: if there is anything bound to collapse, it is the influence of political mercenaries like him, whose only stock-in-trade is peddling pessimism while contributing nothing to progress. Jalingo does not want governance; he wants a perpetual cycle of failure, because without it, he has no voice, no meal ticket, and no stage from which to perform his self-serving outrage.
At the end of the day, Jalingo’s latest tirade is not about NORTHCCO, nor is it about the people of Northern Cross River. It is about Jalingo—the professional scrounger, the ever-willing errand boy of his political overlord, the man who has never built anything but always finds joy in tearing down others. If anyone or anything is set to “blow away in no time,” it is not NORTHCCO—it is the credibility of those, like Jalingo, who mistake hired antagonism for relevance.
Eje Atutu writes from the serene land of Etandere!
