I have tried to be neutral on political issues in the state and face the business of teaching children to pass examinations without malpractice and to help my congregation love Jesus more by living above sin thus attracting the favor of the almighty, but as a social personality, I am tempted to share my thoughts with you on my timeline with a view that one day we may meet and you will remember that one school teacher truly appreciated your powerful 8 years in office.
I am one of the very few persons that you richly blessed in your eight years in office.
Before you came into office, I was newly employed by your predecessor in 2006 and posted to Ntol Comprehensive Secondary school, Ndok, Ogoja. The road between Ndok junction and Mbube was impassable. There were days we just skipped going to school and inspector forgot schools in that area did not exist. To be honest, if you have anything to do at Mbube, you considered it a punishment to go there. In short the road was 98% bad. We named some parts of the road “man pass man”. If you can pass there without falling, then you are a man. It was under your watch that that road was tarred and today Mbube is an upcoming town in Ogoja. Thank you Senator Liyel Imoke.
For all the rural roads that you opened up in Cross River state during your “sleeping” eight years, I rise today to say thank you. You made our food stuffs have value because buyers could have the opportunity of coming in and buying from us instead of us trying hard to bring it to them and sell at their price. God will bless you wherever you are.
For the sixty secondary schools out of the 240 owned by the state government that you turned into first class secondary schools in Nigeria, I hail you. It is only a governor with the future at heart that will heavily invest in education. Each of these 60 schools has first class ICT, Physics, Chemistry and Biology laboratories, with standard well renovated classrooms. The performance of the state in external examinations attests to the fact that your investment was indeed qualitative. It is only a grade one liar that will deny these facts. In fact you have made teaching and learning very interesting.
For the health centers that you spread across most of the rural areas in Cross River state to make the village people like me have access to qualitative healthcare, I sincerely owe you a lot. A minster of the federal republic of Nigeria died in his village because there was no health center there that could have helped him in his crisis period.
At least you tried not to owe any outstanding salaries even when you had dwindling fortunes in the federal allocation. But the truth remains that you promoted us and implemented the promotion.
During your tenure, every holiday we had training and retraining to help build capacity in us to change our orientation from teacher centered approach to child centered approach in our teaching and thus impact positively on our performance. You did well and the record speaks for itself.
You failed with your political class and I think one day you all will meet and sort out your differences which are based on your personal interest and not our interest.
God will bless you. All I know is that you did well.
Mike Udam, an ordinary classroom teacher writes in from Ogoja
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