By Chidi Onyemaizu
At the outset of his governorship in 2015, Professor Ben Ayade was clear about the tenor of his government: Apart from his industrialisation blitz which has in the past five years lifted Cross River from ground zero to an industrial hub with over 30 industries cited in various parts of the state, social welfare was going to characterise his administration.
In the other words, the people and their welfare would be the centre piece of his administration.
And has Ayade kept faith? Is he walking the talk or in Calabar parlance, show- walking? Clearly, yes. Yes, because he recognizes sufficiently, in his words, that “the welfare of the people is key”
The 2021 budget also speaks loudly of Ayade’s commitment to social welfare as it has provisions for social welfare schemes like grants and other financial benefits to help cushion the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the people.
Evidently, Ayade’s governorship is a compendium of inspiring execution and institution of people oriented policies- policies targeted at tackling poverty and improving standard of living.
For example, no sooner had Ayade assumed office than he lifted a 23 year embargo on recruitment of workers into the state’s civil service, employing 2, 500 teachers instantly.
Besides that, upon assumption of office five years ago, the governor restored smiles to the faces of the long suffering 216 staff of the Cross River state Water Board.
The situation at the Cross River state Water Board was dire. Staff there had not been paid for years because they were ad-hoc staff but Ayade converted them to permanent staff, made them civil servants, payrolled them and paid their backlog.
He also extended the same heart warming gesture to the Cross River Broadcasting Corporation, CRBC and CRGIA where hundreds of hitherto ad-hoc staff benefited too.
Ayade also Promoted 33 Civil servants to the permanent Secretary cadre because they were stagnated for so long.
He did all these not only to strengthen the service but also to alleviate poverty and enable families put food on the table.
Cynics who voiced scepticism over the move as to its financial implications on the state got soothing but philosophical words of assurance from the governor: “We will rather employ more people so that we all can earn a little to feed our families than have a few people earn so well and grow fat at the expense of others.
“It is that massive differential between those who have and those who do not have that causes social tension in the society”.
Following the lift on embargo, more workers have since been added into the workforce.
And because Ayade has a heart that beats for the masses, in September he ordered the reabsorption into the service, 2,500 workers who were last year delisted from the payroll for joining the civil service through the back door.
Not only were they reinstated, they have already started receiving their salaries starting from October.
Note that Ayade had legitimate reasons not to reabsorb the workers: One, they were smuggled into the civil service illegally, secondly, the precarious financial condition of Cross River does not support the move.However, the governor bent backwards to reabsorbed them, not because the state has the financial muscle to do so but because he cares enough.
Consistently, he has religiously paid pensions. Cross River under Ayade is one of the few states doing this. 21 states are not fulfilling this obligation to their retired workers.
Fanatic commitment to payment of salaries without fail is another hallmark of Ayade’s welfarist bent. Not for once has Cross River workers been owed salary since the advent of the Ayade administration. This is on record and verifiable too.
In the wake of the Endsars and COVID-19 conflagrations, the need to reduce social tension and keep restive youths at bay has prompted the governor to create 20,000 agro- based jobs for young people in the state.
Here, we are talking about a governor who is not magisterial in his approach to governance and relationship with the people. Where Ayade so, probably the violent dimension of the Endsars protest in Calabar would have been met with iron fisted response from him.
Not many knew that Ayade averted a bloodbath in Calabar via a firm instruction to security agents that force should not be used to confront the arsonists and looters because, in his words, ” no property is worth the life of any human being”
Essentislly, Professor Ayade is a humanist with welfarist leaning who believes that one’s life story should be written not with pen but with actions-impactful actions. According to an American philosopher,John Mason, “the true measure of a person is in his height of ideas, the breadth of his sympathy, the depth of his convictions and the length of his patience.”
This unassuming academic encapsulates all these. He is the only Governor in Nigeria who expanded the frontier of government with the appointment of about 6,000 aides, from about 100.
Note that he does not really need such burgeoning number of aides but Ayade is a modulator between two classical economic theorists; Adam Smith and Thomas Keyness.He believes that expanding and retaining the frontiers of government is a way of helping to put food on the table of indigent families.
Like Keyness, the governor believes that when an economy shrinks, it is the duty of government to spend in order to reflate the economy by engaging more people and encouraging them to spend; and by so doing the economy makes a rebound.
This Professor of Environmental Microbiology, this legal luminary, this Catholic knight, this people’s governor is indeed faithfully fulfilling the social contract he entered into with Cross Riverians five years ago. Yes, Ayade has kept faith, he puts Cross Riverians first.
