By Archibong Jeremiah
A stalwart of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Cross River State and a former member of the State House of Assembly, Hon. Ernest Eki has scored the Senator Ben Ayade led administration ‘zero percent’ and called on the governor to increase the velocity of the pace of development of the State.
The former State legislator who represented Boki 1 State Constituency in the 7th Assembly barred his mind in a chat with CrossRiverWatch recently, where he said the current government “has been mostly heard with nothing to be seen.”
“I have continuously read on the pages of the papers about the Governor’s promise of taking our State to greater heights; well, we can continue to wait for that to happen, but for now, I score the administration zero, because for now I have not seen anything”.
Buttressing on his view, he added that, “For an administration that has gone past six months, people should begin to feel the impact of the administration. But here we are people are suffering, people are talking. If Ayade is vibrant, by today Cross Riverians should be smiling. But walk into Calabar town that used to be very beautiful, now it has been taken over by potholes. You can’t drive around town without landing into a ditch.
“Keeping Calabar clean, one would think will be one of the priorities of this government. He is an environmentalist. He should change. What he’s doing we are not happy. If Calabar which is the hallmark of the State is this way, just imagine how other local areas will be. If he continues like this at the end of his administration he may end up doing nothing”, Hon. Ernest maintained.
He wondered why “the Government that was indebted to the contractors in charge of refuse disposal in the State, would still go ahead to terminate their contract without talking of their pay and hand it to CUDA that has been doing a very bad job.”
While praising the Senator Ben Ayade administration for the ongoing construction of a garment factory, he advised the State government to come clean as regards the ownership of the factory and clear the dark cloud surrounding the ownership, because according to him, “If it’s a government property there’s need for the Assembly to legislatively back it but that hasn’t been done”.
Concluding, he called on the current administration to be more practical as well as Cross Riverians, not to lose hope because there’s still more time ahead “to check the Ayade government”.