BY Dominic Kidzu
He is urbane and gentle but incredibly discerning of every situation. When he speaks soft words they translate into action with lightening speed, every spoken word sprouting seeds of joy in fulfillment of a promise once made. That, my friend, is character, the stuff that great men are made of.
And speaking of greatness, as William Shakespeare admonishes us in Twelveth Night “Be not afraid of greatness, some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.” No one can deny that Jarigbe Agom had a noble birth, has made great endeavors and wears the crown of leadership and greatness today.
His politics is a long page out of Mallam Aminu Kano”s story. Aminu Kano was the king and hope of the poor, the ‘talakawas’ for whom he lived, denying himself enormous pleasure and luxury for the benefit of the downtrodden. It was inevitable that he would clash with the entrenched establishment from time to time. He would take down the entitled traditional ruling class and politicians with the support of the people, trouncing the high and mighty whenever the need arose and planting the people-power ideology for which Kano is still known today.
Until his demise, Aminu Kano owned only one small house in the Gwamaja area of the ancient city, even after having been the author of twenty plays, a federal minister and member of the House of Representatives. When I got to Kano late in 1982, after secondary school, I found that the two most popular personalities in the ancient city were Alhaji Abubakar Rimi who was the governor and Malam Aminu Kano who was the founder of his socialist party, the People’s Redemption Party, PRP, which was in pursuit of an ideal society where all men were equal. The party had also produced a governor in Kaduna state, Alhaji Balarabe Musa.
Although I cannot recall that he has ever confessed a Marxist-Leninist inclination in his philosophical views, Jarigbe’s politics approximates to that of Mallam Aminu Kano in his desire for social equation in which all men are given the opportunity for legitimate pursuit of fair enterprise and the good life. To achieve this noble aim from personal resources, the alternative forgone is personal aggrandizement and the exalted lifestyle of the nouveau riche – with a concomitant spirit of noblesse oblige. He gives freely like the dews of heaven, as if driven by compunction to disperse rather than retain wealth.
This seems to be the passion that drives him to create a near alternative government and try to provide all that government ought to have provided; including the key areas of water, education, health and roads, for the people of Cross River North. It is not for nothing that he is often referred to as the “Governor of the North.” He embodies their aspirations and hopes, dreams their dreams and ultimately lives with them as they with him. It is not possible to distinguish between the distinguished senator and the people, who have themselves become distinguished side by side with him.
He still lives in a middle-class estate in the nation’s capital, comes home to roost in his modest house in Ogoja, his hometown and owns no house in his state capital, Calabar. Franz Kafka was nostalgic when he wrote ” I was ashamed of myself when I realized that life was a costume party and I attended with my real face.” There are no such wistful thoughts for Senator Agom because he is happy to be real all the time. He does not regret his austere lifestyle because he intentionally created it while building mansions in the hearts of men, men who love and trust him with their lives.
And as Catherine confesses about Heathclif in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, “they love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and everything he touches and every word he says. They love all his looks and all his actions and him entirely and all together.” They love him so much that they voted against a sitting governor to send him back to the Senate, braving all odds including the gun boot politics of exalted men of power and the long, dark night of legal disputation. Were Northern Cross River a manor, they would happily have him as Lord-In Residence, but because it is a senatorial zone, they crowned him senator.
Chief Dan Ulasi, ex-Biafran army captain and former chairman of APGA said on television last week that “government is not about making long speeches, it is about taking action.” The people are weary of listening to the speeches, they prefer the positive action they have been seeing throughout the reign of the people’s senator, who builds schools, medical facilities and roads for them. A senator who has started businesses for his constituents, trained and empowered the youths, given motorcycles, keke, cars, tailoring equipment to men, women and youths. And all together made life much more bearable and comfortable for the people of Cross River North.
Having been so well served, his constituents imagine themselves distinct and distinguished, as though they were the senator, each of them and everyone with him, in a unity that knows no pomp nor pageantry, but genuine humility which only mutual love can conjure. In the end when the history of the politics of Cross River State comes to be recounted, Jarigbe Agom’s chapter will be written in gold and it shall tell the story of a young man who denied himself the just desserts of public office and gave all to the masses, for who’s sake he joined politics in the beginning. Do you still wonder why they chose him over a sitting governor? Or doubt the fertile intimations of his own immortality well ahead of time?
