In 447 days time from now, Governor Ayade will share the grace from office. He will stop being our governor. In case you don’t understand; he will hand over to a new governor and become former governor.
But, the actual grace sharing begins after the primaries of the political parties, which must hold and be completed within the next five months. Even before and after then, politicking takes over everything. Governance grinds to a total halt.
But I have been thinking and picking my teeth and wondering that, like play, like play, is this how Governor Ayade will just leave us?
1. Without a superhighway, an evacuation corridor where we will drive from Calabar to Obudu with a glass of water on the trunk of the car and the glass will not shake?
2. Without turning Bakassi to Lugano?
3. Without resettling the Bakassi IDPs?
4. Without, a deep seaport in Bakassi?
5. Without Ikom chocolates in the stores?
6. Without poles, piles and pylons in even Bedwell market in Calabar?
7. Without even a face towel from garment factory in any shop on Marian road in Calabar?
8. Without a rice city churning out highly improved “Calas 77” seeds to the rest of Nigeria to generate NGN70 billion annually for Cross River and decouple the State from federal allocation?
9. Without a trademark roofing sheet or tile from Yala roofing tile factory, in the market?
10. Without Bekwara groundnut oil in the market?
11. Without Obubra cassava processing factory starch in the stores?
12. Without thousands of Cross Riverians on the Ayadecare insurance scheme?
13. Without a functional passenger and cargo airport in Obudu?
14. Without registering an airline or getting an AOC?
15. With a chicken processing factory that functions only during the Yuletide?
16. Without a cotton farm in Yala to feed the garment factory?
17. With brown roofs in Calabar without changing every roof to blue roof?
18. Without a spaghetti fly over?
19. With a depleted green forest and murderous wood barons?
20. Without a bag of Ogoja rice in the market from a bubbling rice mill in Ogoja?
21. With a nearly decapitated civil service?
22. With children been driven away from primary schools for illegal levies?
23. Without Ayadecare specialist hospitals in the three senatorial districts?
24. Without Centricot, Northicot and Calas Vegas?
25. Without a petrocross vessel to rake in revenue for our State?
26. Without a vessel to ship merchandise from Cross River to the world?
27. Without a revolutionary robotic and artificial intelligence innovation?
28. Without flying essential drugs to remote areas in Cross River with drones?
29. Without a functional 23 megawatts electricity generating plant in Calabar or 26 megawatts in Tinapa?
30. Without building two megawatts electricity generating plants in each of the 18 Local Government Areas of the State, through Industrial Project Services (IPS) from South Africa?
31. Without a single drug manufactured from CalaPharm?
32. Without a functional toothpick factory in Ekori?
33. Without a functional Cross River Microfinance bank?
34. Without a banana processing farm in Odukpani?
35. Without the anti-tax committee ending taxation of people earning NGN50 thousand and below?
36. Without stopping indigents from paying fees in UNICROSS as he promised?
37. Without the monorail which he opened himself in Calabar?
38. Without Ayade food banks anywhere in the State?
39. Without Kisimie Noddles in the market?
40. With just food on the table for a few?
These were just some of our governor’s promises, amongst others.
Once the cameras roll in front of him, the promises begin to cascade like the springs of Obudu Ranch. He promised a bag full and has achieved little.
Scattered all over our State today are monuments of infantile passion about industrialization without direction, that will serve as mementos of the trappings of a governor who knew how to talk but could not do.
Governor Ayade remains a shining and fantastic example of how passion alone and ideas do not translate to delivery. He is an epitome of a plan-less leader and a reflection of what a disaster plan-lessness and impulse leadership can wreck.
If you rely on optics and oratory, Ayade will win Nigeria’s best governor any day. But the reality on the ground is not far from me. It is within my grasp, because I am involved.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo, Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, is a Cross Riverian and writes in from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
Leave feedback about this