Efio-Ita Nyok|30 November 2015|6:35am
Your Excellency
The Executive Governor of Cross River State.
Sir,
I know that this would be the last and least thing you/your aides would ever expect from me considering the fact that I have evolved into one of the vociferous critics of your six months stay in office.
Be that as it may, permit me to use this platform, on behalf of Negroid Haven Blog(NHB) to congratulate you on the successful constitution of your cabinet last week. I must admit that it's a milestone well achieved and therefore highly commendable especially considering the fact that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
Albeit, and that said, I am still inclined to doing the needful, a feature for which I have been reckoned with. Sir, there seem to be a challenge with your newly formed cabinet for which I seek clarification and I think your aides can come in here.
Firstly, it has been observed that your cabinet isn't gender sensitive seeing that out of the 28 commissioners we have only three or four women, namely, Mrs. Rosemary Archibong of Ministry of Information & Orientation, Dr. Alice Alok Ekwu of Ministry of Climate Change, and Mrs. Stella Ereme Odey of Ministry of Women Affairs. When we are supposed to follow civilised climes like Canada that recently advocated and operates a 50 men and 50 women policy, we seem to still be in the woods with 3:28 which is nothing near the above yardstick, but from my calculations 10:90: that is, you have 10% women and 90% men in your cabinet. Your policies may be macho in outlook and chauvinistic. Please look into this observation.
Secondly, the masses are confused as to the existence of some ministries and commissioners. For instance, Ministry of Int'l Donor Corporation, Ministry of Sustainable Development and Dr. Alice Alok Ekwu's Ministry of Climate Change are perceived to be one and the same thing. If we are to go by the real meaning of SDGs then you are multiplying entities beyond necessity.
Again, I can bet you that Mr. Edem O. Effiom's Ministry of Social Housing, Mr. George Ekpungu's Ministry of New City Development and Dr. John Inyang's Ministry of Lands & Urban Development will be doing the same job. Why not fuse them into one christening them Ministry of Lands & Urban Development? By this you will reduce cost, bureaucracy, and redundancy.
Your Excellency Sir, can you educate Cross Riverians on the logic by which you divested 'gas resources' from 'petroleum resources', please? Truth be told, I am perceiving 'bureaucratic anarchy' in the future with the formation of Mr. Sunday Achunekang's Ministry of Rural Transformation, Establishment & Training as well as Ministry of Local Government Affairs, me think, Cross River State Civil Service has been finally and totally supplanted. Or, I stand to be corrected.
Thirdly, why insist on increasing the number of ministries from 18 to 28 considering the debt-ridden economy of our state? From records, the state is N440 billion in debt, Whereas, your Signature Projects of 500million Euros(N800 billion) will increase that massive debt profile to N1.24 trillion.
In conclusion, let me still reiterate my congratulation to you because it's now that you will be perceived to hit the ground running as your campaign promises begin to evolve into concrete realities from the ideal world they presently are.
Efio-Ita Nyok
Editor
Negroid Haven
