By Our Correspondent
President Muhammadu Buhari and Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade, yesterday met behind closed door.
Ayade who arrived the Presidential Villa at about 1 p.m clutching a file, was dressed in white Niger Delta shirt and a black trouser.
The governor who was later taken to meet the President at his residence, it was gathered came to discuss the deep seaport project of his government with the President. The meeting lasted about 40 minutes.
The proposed Bakassi deep seaport and the 260km superhighway are estimated to cost about N700 billion. The deep seaport will boost the export of produce such as rice and banana as well as solid minerals.
The governor was also quoted to have said the deep seaport would not compete with existing Calabar ports, it will only complement it because the Bakassi port will be a 16 meters draft and will accommodate mother vessels especially from the far East.
He further said his administration is keeping an eye on human capital index while taking the economy through infinite transposition with the ultimate target of approaching completion the super highway and deep seaport by 2019 t0 2021.
Ayade had last year said the deep seaport had received presidential nod. “Even in the face of several challenges and the fear that this project was impossible, the President has kept giving me proper encouragement and I am happy to acknowledged that”, he had said during the official visit of the Managing Director of Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA).
It would be recalled that the Federal government recently gave the Cross River State Government the approval to recruit a transaction advisor for the project.
It had also constituted an advisory and implementation committee for the project.
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