By Jonathan Ugbal; Government House Correspondent
Cross River governor, Ben Ayade has announced that the state’s scholarship program will begin by March this year.
The governor also announced the appointment of 21 youth liaison officers into his cabinet which has come under criticism for its size.
Ayade who disclosed this while addressing youths from the 18 local governments in the state at the governor’s office premises in Calabar who held a solidarity rally in his honor called on them to be patient and support his administration as he aims to reconstruct the state.
Following a request from the crowd which numbered around a thousand, to include three to four more youths in his cabinet, Ayade announced he will be appointing 21 of them present at the rally and disclosed the beginning of the states’ scholarship to indigenes across the globe.
“From this crowd, I will like to take one youth from each local government and bring into government. The eighteen local governments will produce one youth leader, bring that person and the person will be in government immediately and that youth must be under 30.
“The next step we are going to take is that we are going to have another set of youths between the ages of 30 to 35, I need 3 of those ones and those ones will manage my senatorial district.
“For students, we are starting our scholarship program by March” Ayade said.
Earlier, the Youth and Sports Commissioner, Asu Okang who organized the rally said the youths have never had it so good as they now do under the Ayade led administration.
Two of the youth leaders who spoke on behalf of their colleagues, Okori Bernard and Coco Bassey appreciated Ayade’s gesture of youth inclusiveness and pledged their unalloyed support for his administration.