A Few More To Do Things Before May, 29th….
Before I finish writing this piece, it would be Monday, the 18th of May, 2015. That would be 11 days before the 29th handover date. I stopped the count down because I need some people to be around to hand over on that day. Not to handover by proxy.
Nevertheless, I remember a few dramas during the run off to the handover. Like Governor Imoke receiving the monorail cars and the photo ops!
I could not stop laughing!
Still on the Legacy quest I can only imagine. Ok, so in some distant future our children will be educated that one Governor Imoke introduced monorail transport in the city of Calabar because he received some monorail cars about two weeks to the end of his 8 years tenure!
That’s one grand “legacy ” indeed ! But don’t expect any monorail transport in this city anytime soon. Even by the project wisdom of Governor Imoke, it is for the CICC. To run from the Calabar International Conference Centre to Tinapa!.. .
Don’t forget to laugh because the CICC is within the premises of Tinapa! I don’t know what they will be commuting to Tinapa for; maybe shopping maybe for lunch! That’s how important this particular “legacy ” is to our wellbeing and the future of our children to warrant the billions of Naira borrowed for investment in it !
Secondly, I saw pictures on the Display Picture section of some of the outgoing governor’s aides’ BlackBerry phones showing off; I believe the best angle of the uncompleted “Calabar International Conference Centre”.
I don’t know the plans but I hope the bruised and brutalised President GEJ will be available to commission this edifice which has been making “International” appearance on CNN as a landmark construction and architectural wonder of our generation when residents of Calabar, its’ host city, are yet to see such an edifice in their town!
No thanks to 3D animation. At least he will be leaving a “legacy” that during his 6 years in power, he had occasion to commission something from Governor Imoke in Cross River State! I have hopes that, at least again, that would provide the world the opportunity to be shown this wonder that is guaranteed by loan profile to keep future generations of Cross Riverians in debt.
The international architectural association, by whatever name it is called that was supposed to hold their annual conference here last year must be having a laugh at our expense as more money (in hard currency) is diverted to publicise this failed project. What a “legacy”!
Thirdly, and before I forget, I have not heard from the National Sports Commission but it seems we touched national sports most embarrassingly with our “hosting” of the National Sports Festival with the carcasses of the constructions left hanging across the state as a monumental testimony of our planning and can-do-spirit!
Anyway, I am reminded that Duke did not complete Tinapa before he commissioned it almost at the twilight of that administration. And that government is a continuous process. Well said and good. I only wish we factored that into our planning instead of collapsing every available resource of government into a few years as if there is no tomorrow and in the process compromising institutions and legacies of the past just for a whim of glory that even providence has conspired to deny us as it is!
I hate to remember that the Cross River State stabilisation fund which took years of savings was frittered away and compromised in a few frivolous strokes of the pen and manipulation of the Cross River State House of Assembly, just for one man’s ego.
If we as Cross Riverians were too afraid to stand up and resist, God intervened for us by demolishing the edifice upon which our continued oppression stood, the Peoples Democratic Party!
If President GEJ had won elections “…some people will be thinking that they know it all…”, to paraphrase the words of a song by TuFace. As it is, the wind has blown and a lot of people will soon know that “fada dey wear nikka inside him gown”!
As we stand today, a lot of people will answer lots of questions about our plight, both within and outside the state. I am happy that the Minister for Finance rejected the 40bn Naira bond issue.
Already there are rumbles in First Bank and I am informed that not a few heads will roll, some not unconnected with the Cross River State infinitely elastic facility for unjustified projects of dubious value! Our state alone owes the Bank as I hear, close to 100bn! Indeed the financial health of First Bank is suspect! And the Cross River State Government is officially bankrupt!
How did we get to this very low point? Our streets are an eyesore, our public institutions in shambles, our public service comatose. Our people have lost their last vestiges of pride! Poverty has removed all our claim to decency! From a very proud people 8 years ago, we are back in a state of awkward silence at best and bewilderment at the very worst, bemoaning what happened to our state. But we speak in whispers!
This is not the Cross River State I grew up in. And this is not the Cross River State I want to bequeath to my children and future generations! It is certainly not the Cross River State of anyone’s dreams. We must all reject as a legacy of our democracy, a heritage of fear! We must never fear to discuss the state of our state nor discuss our state affairs in fear!
It has been politics these past 8 years all the way! Where the “leader” gossips his aides to each other, sets brother against brother, instigates competition amongst aides and encourages nepotism and discord with divide and rule tactics that seem so primitive at times that you become ashamed to ever be associated with such a regime, all in the name of “I know politics”! Intimidation has been our only state policy in competition with its twin policy of imposition.
Never should we allow anyone use us on an ego trip like this again! Those who hope to copy from this blueprint had better think well. The delayed destruction of PDP Cross River state is to enable some people reap the bitter results of their wicked plots against the people. It is not a legacy for anyone to take glory in.
Mark my words, the days of the long knives (reckoning) is coming soon. Very, very soon and the undertakers are already on standby.
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