Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly Rt. Hon. John Gaul Lebo has said it is time to move away from individual ideas into a convergence of collective community intelligence to avoid economic crisis.
The Speaker bared his mine while responding to a team from Technology Entertainment Design led by the Organization’s licensee/Lead Organizer, Bryce Edem, who said they were in the Speaker’s office to seek the support of the State legislators.
Lebo said, ‘’We need a leader that will bring Nigerians into a convergence, seat and talk one on one with those who have the skills and intellectual capacity in various areas to drive and diversify the economy’’.
He maintained that the biggest partnership in the world is when Government is partnering youths, private sector, private individuals and organizations and that since the World economy is knowledge driven, Nigeria had gotten herself into resection because she first chose intellectual resection due to lack of capacity to generate the ideas that should hold together the framework and the fibber of the Nigerian economy.
The law maker argued, ‘Let’s not deceive ourselves. we use to say, Nigeria’s economy is the largest economy in Africa, but that’s not true because, Johannesburg stock exchange which is $34 billion is the same amount Nigeria was having in foreign reserve five years ago. So, we are not the biggest economy. The Nigerian economy is run on what I will call ‘’single line intelligent fibber’’ which is working on one intelligent regime (Oil and revenue mobilization), collect money from Oil, share it to the States. Now that there is no more money for us to share, we have gotten ourselves into recession’’
He commended TED for considering Cross River State, describing their programme as innovative and therefore, called for it to be supported by Government, the private sector and individuals, promising to partner them to enhance knowledge capacity.
Earlier, the leader of the team, Bryce Edem, said that Technology Entertainment and Design (TED) is a platform where ideas are generated and showcased, adding that TED is one of the foremost platforms in the world that is supporting changing initiatives; ideas worth spreading and adding value to the society.
Edem, in addition said TED has been licensed to operate in Calabar with an inaugural event slated to hold from 3rd to 16th of December with the objectives of driving the people of the State to ideas evolution. ‘’It is time for Crossriverans to rise up and join the world ideas evolution and Nigeria as a whole and we are starting from Calabar being the First Capital of Nigeria.
