by crossriverwatch admin
Senator Prince Bassey Otu who is representing Cross River Southern Senatorial District in the National Assembly on Saturday 27th April, 2013 handed items worth over fifty million Naira to over two hundred members of his constituency.
The items ranged from cars, buses, speed boats, sewing machines, tiles cutting machines, barbing and hair dressing equipment.
Speaking at the presentation ceremony in Calabar, Senator Otu said his election which was against the wishes of some powerful forces in the state but came through with the support of the ordinary people was a humbling experience which placed a burden on him to deliver the dividends of democracy to the teeming crowds that believed in him and elected him to the Senate.
He said, “My election was one of the most historic in our state and the outcome was both humbling and inspiring to me; it placed a burden of unique stewardship on me and ignited a resolve in me to engage everything towards solving the grueling problems of neglect, poverty, low economic activities and declining standard of education among our people”.
He said the empowerment scheme which is the first phase took this long in coming because of some challenges even as he had the desire to move fast towards improving the lot of the people “before we could gather momentum after we were sworn after the election, the twin hitches of the Bakassi give away and the 76 oil wells loss reared their heads and drained our energies considerably”.
He listed the items he was giving to the people to include 32 Audi cars for taxis, 7 buses, 15 tricycles, ten boats fitted with outboard engines, 35 barbing saloon equipment along with chairs and other facilities, 35 hairdressing saloon equipment complete with all the necessary facilities, 20 tiles cutting machines and 25 generators.
Senator Otu said he was doing this because there was high level of lack among the people both at personal and individual levels which calls for people with resources to reach out to others. “Our people have had to pass through some real humanly challenging situations at personal and family levels that demand quite some substantial help and in most of these cases no God fearing representative would look the other way”.
He said many of the people who are said to be poor today are very industrious and enterprising “but lack the requisite economic empowerment to create stability and they only need to be supported with some fund and tools to set them forth towards making a decent living”.
According to the Senator, outside the empowerment scheme, he had touched many lives through personal handouts and through the execution of projects in the Akamkpa, Biase, Odukpani, Bakassi, Calabar South, Calabar Municipality and Akpabuyo which constitute his constituency. “We have facilitated the building of schools, libraries, water projects, constructed roads and drainage, provided computers in schools and across all the constituent units of our district”.
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