… Says he is a great achiever and Nigeria is waiting for him
By Ebriku John Friday
Cross River State Commissioner for Health, Dr Betta Edu has congratulated Governor Ben Ayade on the conferment of the Governor of the Year – Agro-industrialisation award on him by the Blueprint Newspapers.
Governor Ayade received the award during the Blueprint Newspapers 10th Anniversary and Impact Series and Awards 2021 on Thursday in Abuja.
The Cross River State Governor, who is popularly described as Digital Governor by his teeming supporters was honoured in recognition of his giant strides of industrialising the state and decoupling it from it’s formal civil servant status. It was noted that in spite if the near zero monthly allocations from the federation allocation and an emancipated internally generated revenue, the governor has kept his eyes on the ball while yet focusing on his lofty dreams.
Congratulating the Governor, Dr Edu said, “He is a super governor, and a great governor. He is a achiever and he has changed the entire political space and the entire industrial space in Cross River State.
“He has over 38 industries that can be accredited to his government. I want congratulate him. This is just the beginning. He should continue to push. Nigeria is waiting for him.
Governor Ayade is noted as a solution architect, who sees every challenge and obstacle in his way as an opportunity to prove his resourcefulness and ingenuity in tackling the many socioeconomic miasmas he inherited.
By expanding government and commonising salary payments, Governor Ayade has clawed many from the labyrinth of despair, despondency and hopelessness. As well as from the jaws of death. Consequently, he has been able to quell the likely throwbacks of social tensions that would have sprouted.
Obviously punching above his weight and beyond the carrying capacity of the state, the Professor of Environmental Microbiology turned Senator-cum governor has since embarked on a number of multi-billion naira projects across the state, which source of funding has been an astonishment to many but Gov Ayade the inventor of “Intellectual money” “other people’s money (OPM)” as well “G-Money” remains untainted and focus on delivering his mandate and creating a New Cross River State.
Ranging from the Calabar Garment Factory, the Rice Seeds and Seedlings Multiplication Centre, Calabar Pharmaceutical Company (Calapharm), the 23 magawatts power plant all completed under three years, with the ready to be commissioned Noodles Factory, Chicken Processing Plant with a capacity of processing 24 thousand birds per day.
Also a Feed mill and organic fertilizer plant, piles and pylon plant all located in the Southern Senatorial District of the state as well as the already commissioned toothpick factory in Ekori, Yakur councl area, the fully installed 30,000 metric tons cocoa processing plant in Ikom in the Central Senatorial District and vitamised automated rice killing plant in Ogoja which equipment installation is also completed and ready for commissioning.
Also worthy of note is the British/Canadian International School, the construction of the 147 kilometres dual carriage Mfom-Yala-Ogoja-Bekwarra-Obudu-Obanliku road, in the Northern Senatorial zone, the dualization of Tinapa/Odukpani federal road, amongst.
It has been noted that in every direction one turns in the state today, the marks of good governance are all too striking: industries with zonal spread, reengineering schools, rehabilitating and well equipped hospitals, peace and security, economic empowerment Industrial and agricultural revolution are common place.
