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By Akpan David, Calabar
A social activist and an online news media entrepreneur in Cross River State has, Agbá Jalingo has raised the alarm over his personal safety as well as those of his family members.
He alleged that his own life is now seriously been endangered, pointing accusing fingers Gov Ben Ayade of Cross River State and his younger brother, Frank.
According to him, the governor and Frank are responsible for continual threats to his life and incessant travails.
He insisted that he is not a criminal but that the police have been made to be treating him as such having been detained several times and actually incarcerated for carrying out his professional duties as a journalist.
His current travail is as a result of a report where he insisted that a mercenary was contracted to write a law school examination for the wife of Frank Ayade, maintaining that he has proofs.
In a statement issued yesterday night, Jalingo said, “I wish to inform the general public that, should anything happen to me or my wife or my daughter or my brother, Utsu Atsu, who stood surety for me from the Police or any of my staff, Nigerians should hold Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, his younger brother, Franko Ayade and the Nigeria Police, responsible.
“If anything, the Police are meant to run after criminals. I, Agba Jalingo, is not a criminal. I can hit my chest confidently and say it very loudly that I have no history of association with any form of criminality since I was born. Rather, I have worked at great risk and turmoil, for the betterment of society within this period, when others were living their peaceful lives.
“It’s unfortunate that, those who should be arrested for using mercenaries to write exams and corruptly amassing public wealth, are the ones using the same Police to haunt an innocent patriot who hasn’t breached any law but just doing his job as a journalist.”
Few years ago, Jalingo was bundled into a rickety police vehicles from his Lagos residence and driven through bumpy roads for 15 hours and dumped in a police detention facility in Calabar over allegation of N500m and a state-owned microfinance Bank against the governor, climaxing in a jail sentence at Afokang correctional facility. He was released after much International pressure.
He has alleged that there is constant security surveillance, trailing, physical and electronic monitoring of his life and that of his wife and staff, lamenting that it has occasioned serious disruptions to their work and business.
He added that the security surveillance and threats are worrisome intrusion that a law abiding family like his does not deserve.
By the constant trailing, Jalingo is afraid that a sword is dangling over his neck.
He claimed that the Ayades are bent on making sure that he is removed from circulation before the forthcoming elections for reasons best known to them, adding that they are using every foul means, money and the Police in particular to achieve their goal.
He went on to claim that in the past 25 years, he has been unfairly moving from one court to another in Nigeria in criminal trials for crimes he believed he never committed.
“Not once have I been convicted of any crime and not once have I ran away from my trial. I doubt if I even have any record of missing a court date even when I had to travel for hundreds of miles to get to court.”
He disclosed that the Police have again charged him under the cybercrime act because he reported that someone wrote the law school exams for the wife of Governor Ayade’s younger brother.
He disclosed that he would be arraigned on March 27 at the Federal High Court 4 in Abuja.
