Abaribe: I will Continue to Fight for People’s Right

By Deji Elumoye

The Senate Minority Leader, Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe, has vowed to continue to fight for the rights of the citizenry through necessary legislative interventions as well as taking definite stand on critical national issues.

Abaribe, who spoke in Abuja on Monday while playing host to poets from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka who authored his biography titled ‘Ala Asaala, Silhouette of Abaribe’, said he has been fighting injustice against the people since his time as deputy governor of Abia State in 1999.

The senator stated that his political life since the advent of the Fourth Republic has been full of coincidences in the cause of fighting for what is right.

He explained that his travails as deputy governor of Abia State in 2000, made the late Oba of Lagos, Oba Adeyinka Oyekan, to invite him to Lagos and gave him the title of Alasela, meaning successful person, “which was coined by my people from the East end to Ala Asaala, meaning enlargement of coast”.

According to Abaribe, “Since then, it has been successful endeavours for me and enlargement of coast politically, having been in the Senate since 2007 till date and even as Minority Leader, paving the way for me to speak to Nigerians on critical issues and join other stakeholders in putting things aright.”

He stated that the literary work used in depicting his little contributions to the Nigerian society by African Spontanists Movement (ASM) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, will further spur him to do more for the advancement of his society and humanity generally.

“The message you the poets from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, conveyed to me through this literary work is far more profound and will serve as required tonic for me in the service to humanity and God,” he said.

The leader of the literary team, Uchechukwu Chigbu, while presenting the book, said it is a poetic presentation of Abaribe’s service to humanity over the years.

Chigbu said the literary work is not a biography, which may end up in the archive, but poetry which will outlive the writers and the person honoured with it.

“The poetry encompasses perspective of service-driven politics, liberation and struggle for just cause in the society which will generate reactions and discussions generation after generation,” he said.

The Director of the Institute of African Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. Florence Orabueze, in her Foreword to the book said: “Ala Asaala is a true art for saying what it says it is. It is epic, awakening, engaging, revealing, vibrating, agonizing and infusing of tunes, truths, thoughts and emotions that stay with the reader long after sounds die away.”