By Our Correspondent
Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade has been conferred with the Award of Excellence by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for his leadership and foresight in improving the life of the people of the state.
Presenting the award, the Executive Director Center for Peace and President/CEO of US-UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations, Mr. Guy Djoken disclosed that “As a token and testimonial to your leadership and foresight in the manner you are improving the lives of the people of Cross River State and Nigeria, we have decided to encourage you with this to boost your morale for more result-oriented initiatives.
He lauded the state for being at the forefront of tourism development in the country saying: “Cross River has carved a niche for itself in Nigeria by pioneering tourism development in Nigeria. This will afford us the opportunity of showcasing your rich cultural heritage and other bounteous potentials in the state to the world to come and invest in these boundless opportunities existing here.”
Continuing, the Executive Director opined: “We want to help you have the Cross River State of United States because we see you as a very active state so as to enable you draw from the bank of opportunities we have in the United States through active collaboration and partnership with our chambers of commerce and industry to create wealth and continuously improve on the living condition of average member of this great state.”
On areas of collaboration with the state, Guy Djoken further disclosed that UNESCO will love to partner the state to establish a virtual Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Center that will serve as a call center as well as support all other IT-related activities with the view to building the entrepreneurship, capacity as well as create jobs among the youths to make them self-reliant.
“Apart from our cardinal objectives of promoting peace around the world, free education for a civic society, we are encouraging entrepreneurship training among the young ones to make them self-reliant, create jobs and be employers of labor which is a big departure from what is currently the trend in Nigeria where everyone looks for white collar jobs that do not exist,” he added.
Djoken who highlighted other areas of partnership with the state said: “I’m glad to announce to you that we are ready to work with you in the area of agriculture, renewable energy, education and health care delivery that we have initiated in the state, as well as our resolve to help you attend sustainable development goals.”
He said following the UN declaration of 2015 – 2024 as Decade for people from African descent leading to celebration of blacks around the world, the agency will assist Cross River to host one of the events to celebrate the anniversary.