By Jonathan Ugbal and Maxwell Effiong
Cross River Governor, Benedict Ayade penultimate weekend donated NGN10 million as his support to the Beebo/Bumaji self help road construction project.
Beebo/Bumaji communities which hosts over 54,000 people are remotely located in Eastern Boki, accessible only by a lone rugged 10.2 km road from Bateriko whose difficult terrain makes it a 90-minute drive.
And, following decades of what was termed neglect, tied to some superstitious effect, the Obi and Akpanke foundations wrote eminent Cross Riverians to support their self-help initiative to fix the road.
The Convener, Bette Obi, an aide to Mr. Ayade on afforestation said, “The Beebo/Bumaji road is an albatross that has hindered all well-intended developmental effort put together by both government and individuals for the benefit of this land. If you were to be conducted round the Ward, you would see for yourselves the rate of infrastructural deficit, absence of social amenities and the level of economic defect that abounds. And, to solve these myriad problems, we identified the chief bane of our challenges – lack of accessible road and thus, we are gathered to find a way of ameliorating the daunting issue.”
Mr. Ayade, represented by the Commissioner for Rural Transformation, Edem Okokon averred that the Beebo/Bumaji communities were not forgotten and pledged to work on the road soon enough and as a sign of faith, pledged NGN10 million.
The Chairman of the occasion and Nigeria’s former Ambassador to Mali, Soni Abang warned of the dangers of the access road as it concerns logging and asked the community to choose between NGN2 million or having access to his bulldozers for 15 days.
A former Deputy Governor in the State, Efiok Cobham donated NGN1 million while the Senator representing the central senatorial district, Sandy Onoh represented by Professor Dave Imbua donated NGN500 thousand.
Federal lawmaker, Chris Agibe who was represented by Mr. Chris Okem donated NGN500 thousand while a former Senator representing the southern senatorial district, Prince Bassey Otu donated NGN100 thousand.
The founder of the Akpanke Foundations, Mr. Peter Akpanke who disclosed that their mother hailed from Beebo, announced the donation of NGN2 million.
Other donations included State lawmaker, Itam Abang – NGN200 thousand; her colleague, Hillary Bisong – NGN100 thousand; former council Chairman, Abubakar Ewa – NGN300 thousand and the Paramount Ruler who said his wife was cured of barrenness at Kakwe community in Beebo – NGN100 thousand.
Pledged and donated at the venue of the launch was NGN17.9 million out of the NGN50 million proposed for the project.
Below are pictures from the event…
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