Cross Riverians at home and in the Diasporas have been called upon to pull their collective weight behind Governor Ben Ayade in his developmental aspiration for the state.
This challenge was handed down by the Speaker, Cross River House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo, the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Barrister Joe Oshie Abang and the Commissioner for Women Affairs, Hon. Stella Odey while speaking on Radio programme tagged “Ayade’s Cross River” on a topic, “Building the Cross River State of our dream” on Monday in Calabar.
The programme which is an initiative of the Governor’s Office Press Department will be a weekly programme that will run every Monday with a repeat edition on Thursday and anchored by the trio of the Governor Media Aides, Beatrice Akpala, Emmanuel Ulayi and Solomon Asha
All the speakers agreed that it is incumbent on the people of Cross River to give their total support to Governor Ben Ayade as a morale boost to enable him carry on with the numerous development projects like the super highway, deep seaport, and garment factory, among others, stressing that allowing foreigners to dictate what we should do and how we should manage our forests resources, to build roads or not to build is a clear indication of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
On the super highway, they collectively agreed that it was total unpatriotic for some indigenes of Cross River to fight against the actualization of the super highway, asserting that if the Federal Government has agreed to expand the existence Calabar-Ikom-Ogoja-Katsina Ala highway to a four lane highway as proposed by the Cross River government, there would have been no need for the new super highway to serve as evacuation corridor to the deep seaport.
They explained that it is complete negative propaganda to claim that the super highway will take 10km right and left of the road and that those who have turned the social media into a battle arena against Governor Ayade lack adequate information, stressing that the super highway will be the biggest booster of the state’s ecotourism industry and that it is vain effort to attempt to stop Cross River from having a super highway, adding that it was wicked to think that the same government that fight against illegal logging will at the same time be involve in the same act.
In the area of Women development, the speakers also agreed that the administration of Senator ben Ayade has given women more opportunities, broaden their scope of participation to contribute to the development of the state through empowerment, training , registration into associations and cooperatives to benefit from the Bank of Industry and other banks loans, adding that the women of the state were totally in support of the Super highway project because of the immense economic benefits it will bring to them and their families.
As part of the deliberate effort of the Ayade leadership to provide a solid legal foundation that will be of immense benefit to the ordinary Cross Riverian, they also informed members of the public that the Cross River House of Assembly have initiated 48 Bills out of which 18 have been passed into law, adding that the Homeland security Service Bill when passed onto law will equally ensure the recruitment of 3000 volunteers who will help in providing safety, ensure home identity, code and share information to the security agents.
They equally disclosed that the administration of Governor Ayade has reduced the numbers of cases inherited from 786 to about 500 as well as reduced the numbers of cases against government which stood at more than 90 percent at the inception of this administration, and called on all Cross Riverians to support the government of Senator Ayade to succeed for the good of all.
~Emmanuel Ulayi
