Efio-Ita Nyok|4 May 2016|4:27am
Yesterday 3 June, Agba Jalingo, the publisher/Editor-in-Chief of CrossRiverWatch, a leading online news retail outlet in Cross River State made the underlying statements concerning the landscape pictures of one of Gov Ben Ayade's Signature Projects, namely, the 260km dual carriage Superhighway:
*Now I Have An Idea Of What Governor Ayade Is Talking About:
Ask and you shall be given.
I asked for the pictures of the Cross River state Super Highway and I got them.
They look good. They give me an idea of what the road from Calabar to my village will look like and I am very happy.
Please I want to beg those who are opposing this project to give us a chance to have a befitting road.
Yes, I agree that there are things that have not been properly done at the initial stage that must be done and I understand the governor is addressing those issues.
I was personally at the Environmental Impact Assessment, EIA public presentation at Channel View Hotel, Calabar yesterday and I think that those issues are being sorted out.
Please let this road become a reality.
Sequel to Jalingo's remarks on his social media account a blend of criticisms and commendations attended it. Notable amongst these critics are the embattled Obudu-born former National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Venatius Ikem, Princewill Odidi, Emmanuel Undie, Peter Offem Ubi and one Betty Abah, etc. I will recapture their insightful arguments in turn in this publication.
Venatius Ikem
@ Agba Jalingo, this reminds me of the pictures of Tinapa that we used to watch on Supersports while watching the EPL. Do you remember?
Beehive of shopping activities that signaled a Nigerian Dubai! $Billions down the line, the Resort is almost a dead end with the swimming pool as our only benefit.
I do not believe that anybody is “opposed' to the idea of a Super Highway. The questions I hear are:
1) Is the project that urgent in view of the alternative old road that will cost much less to repair and upgrade!
2) Is due process being followed? Who is the contractor? What process was the procurement done?
3) Can our economy support such a project at this point in time?
We are suffering today because of successive white elephant projects (Tinapa, ICC, Monorail) which have no immediate value to the economy but whose funding mortgages our present.
Today we are supposed to sympathize with Gov Ayade because CRS has zero allocation! (If N900m means zero by your own arithmetic). Why did we get zero? Because our allocation was deducted to pay the Banks from which we collected billions of loans to pay for these white elephant projects!
But, imagine for a moment when N700Bn, which Ayade claims as cost of the Super Highway, is added to our debts! Even our grandchildren will be unable to pay the loans! Of course Ayade would have settled his family for life from the proceeds from the project as we are already witnessing even as we clap for him like fools! His family will relocate to any part of the world and live like bourgeois while the next generations of leaders will be grappling with the loans! That's why some of say “No” to the project as we had said “No” to Tinapa. Not because the idea is bad but because the idea is too far ahead of its time.
Development is a gradual process. We must learn to crawl, walk before we run! Doing otherwise will rather slow down the pace of development. Today, most states that lagged behind CRS a few years ago have overtaken us because of debt burdens. Today we cannot even keep our cities clean! That's the tragedy of leadership deception on vacuous visions that we slavishly buy at our own peril.
Eau Undie
Sir, I think you are getting this wrong. See, I like the looks of a rocket ship, it's amazing! It's packed full of some of the greatest technologies in the world. But tell me I will get in that ship next week…even if u are Bill Gates or Obama, I would think you are sick in your head.
The reality and feasibility of a project does not consist in its beauty. it consists in the dreamers' plan which would include a financial plan on how to get there. Only a bad dreamer would fantasize things. This road is fantasy for as long as I have not seen any plan that includes the source of the money to foot the bill. You see the point?
For my position on this project, I do not oppose. I say it is not a realistic dream but fantasy. Secondly, I say it is unrealistic because I am yet to see anything presented to the world to show the source of funds to do the project. More so, from my stand point, it is an impossible ruler that would want to force a good thing down the throats of people without carrying them along. A project like this is supposed to have started with bringing together, professionals who would brain storm in a town hall meeting, etc to give direction to things.
Example, MTN in that meeting would have told the Governor they have no equipment to supply a 4G LTE internet to him through the length of that road. NCC would have told him there is nobody with the capability to provide same for him and he needs over $100m to get a spectrum from them for the purpose in case he wants CRS to become a service provider.
There is something called a project life cycle. If you want to do that kind of road the way you contemplate it, you would have first of all started providing 4G LTE Internet services in Nigeria first, and you would have your head office not in Abuja but Calabar or somewhere in Yakurr axis because of your road plan. My boss, if I saw this kind of a plan, I would feel there is a knowledgeable person at that pilot's seat. for now, count me out of the plan.
It won't take off given the way it is currently positioned and given the kind of guy at the pilot's seat. I know from the guy's body language. It's not about trying to convince me with fantasy. Give me facts and get my thumbs up!!!
Peter Offem Ubi
I cannot be fooled. Those gullible can accept this deception of a landscape design. Dem never clean calabar street trash na road trash dem go clean.
Betty Abah
Agba Jalingo, I have always known you as a pro-people person so I would want to give you the benefit of the doubt that you may be seeing the flashing prototypes of the project yet not well acquainted with the cost of the projects on several levels.
Mr. Ikem has virtually said it all, but let me ask these questions:
1. Of what REAL VALUE is a road that would consume nearly 1/4 of an entire state but ends, not at an international border area eg Cameroon, but in your village, or around Katsina-ala in my home state of Benue?
2. Of what essence is the destruction of thousands of kilometres of pristine rainforest to make a short road that virtually leads nowhere and in the process endanger bio-diversity, rob forest dependent people of their livelihoods, so crudely revoke ancestral land rights by fiat?
3. What stops the government from expanding, renovating the existing federal road that is in gross disrepair and preserve priced forest areas?
4. Have you imagined the extent of economic transformation the N700B will translate to the state in terms of livelihoods enhancements just for the restless youth population?
5. Have you ever wondered why CRS keeps falling victim to politicians who are enamoured by flashy (white elephant) projects which adds NOTHING to the improvement of the poor masses' lives (enough said by Mr. Ikem on Tinapa)?
6. Why can't we the people stand by the people, when, for the umpteen time, the future is being mortgaged again on a platter of a deceptive and destructive project that leads NOWHERE?
7. Why am I interested? As a UNICAL graduate and a frequent Calabar visitor, I count CRS my second state; I am very well attuned to the acute poverty in the land and I know the poor people deserve better.
Thanks, Sir.
Princewill Odidi
For the past 16 years, CRS policy thinkers followed an economic development path that i respectfully disagree with. What has rather bothered me has been if it was done intentionally or it is just the economic thinking and approach that is flawed.
Tinapa, ICC, Monorail, and now Superhighway all designed and conceptualized on presumed faulty economic assumptions.
When AYADE came in as governor we had expected a shift in paradigm, but we presumed wrongly. I assume AYADES economic planners had assumed that a Seaport and a Superhighway as evacuation route would automatically result to development and improved Internally generated revenue (IGR) .
This thinking is economically flawed. Development is not magic, it is a product of both systemic and structural planning, which are two major capacity components we lack in the state.
With the loss of oil wells, AYADE should have focused on short term people focused programs that will directly stimulate the local economy, creating new streams of local income, initiate programs built on existing structures to encourage our teaming unemployed youths to develop ventures based on cooperative formations in agriculture and local mining.
Now, understand that by design virtually all our current towns are located in the current main road, investing rather in the current road will jump start the sluggish economy faster than a superhighway passing through a forest whose only short term economic value is a difference in time to point of destination.
The current state of our federal allocation and dwindling IGR calls for frugality in spending, and not additional borrowing for new structures.
Even though economically, increased borrowing can bail out a stagnant economy, but only if the new loans are structured into a decayed sector that if rejuvenated would reactivate other dormant or redudndant sectors.
The superhighway at this point is not a sector that can play this role in the states economic framework. At the current state of our economy, the policy of government should rather focus on re-mediating existing structures and not the creation of new structures.
That will be a more meaningful economic approach. I wish the state government can listen to voices of reason and re-strategize her development priorities . It is still not late. So when the people see Cosmetics such as Tinapa, ICC and Monorail, because of our level of exposure, we get it mistaken to be development. Development is only meaningful if the people can relate meaningfully with these projects.
Development only occurs when these Cosmetics are directly linked to the day to day activities of the people and can help improve the people's economic wellbeing. Example, if the Monorail cuts across CALABAR town, and market women can move their goods from place to place, farmers can move their produce from place to place, school children can jump on the Monorail to school and civil servants to work, then thats development.
The superhighway would be considered development if it is directly useful to our local economy especially as it would affect IGR. , Apart from shortening the time to Obudu, does it portend any other economic benefit? The current highway passing through Ugep, if revamped and dualized, can it serve the same purpose of an evacuation corridor as envisaged in the superhighway?
Our economy presently is built on Agriculture, small trades, hospitality, mines and tourism. To what extent would the superhighway boost any of the mentioned sectors both in the short term by boosting IGR or in the long term by addressing our debt profile? This explains why as I have earlier argued, if we must build a superhighway, let us do a long term economic plan to ensure it will be economically beneficial to the structure of our present economy.
At the end of the day we are faced with an economic question. Do we subscribe to Cosmetic development and its aesthetic values bothering on tourism or would we subscribe to sustainable development that would affect your immediate lives and current activities?
Both economic lenses on these argument have their strengths and weaknesses, but from my training and travels, Cosmetic development works better in developed climes where the productive forces of society are already developed and can accommodate it, for underdeveloped societies like ours, sustainable development may be more meaningful. I stand to be corrected.
*The reader is left to decipher the truth for himself. Which arguments are valid. My job was to bring the debate into context.
Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger & the Editor of Negroidhaven.org (Negroid Haven)
