Princewill Odidi|20 December 2017
1. Do you know there are close to 49 Companies operating within the Calabar free trade zone? How many jobs have those companies generated for Cross River State indigenes and why has EPZ failed to be realized as the brain child of massive industrialization we were told about more than a decade ago? The answer is simple, bureaucratic Corruption, Administrative bankruptcy and project hijack by outsiders.
2. Do you know EPZ was created to boost industrialization and provide jobs for Nigerians and host Communities of Cross River, It will surprise you to know how many Cross Riverians work in the Zone and who actually Controls the zone.
3. Do you know General Electric that Imoke brought have been converted to backdoor traders to make quick profit turn arounds, importing equipment and selling to nearby African countries instead of producing and no one says anything. They use our states infrastructure to generate massive trading profit, with nearby Countries, do not pay any taxes to our state government, and barely hire our people, and nothing accrues to the state yet we are ignorant of all these?
4. Do you know imported secondary goods entering the EPZ, if CRSG can access at least 10% levies and fees to support our decaying infrastructure; it is capable of generating about 10 billion Naira monthly for the state government? You can ask me again, why we have EPZ and we still depend on the federal government for handouts.
5. Do you know on the management of Calabar Ports and EPZ, The Hausas control the administrative procedures including customs clearance, The Ibos own the Containers that bring in goods, the Yorubas have bureaucratic control and monopolize exports and Cross Riverians are bystanders watching ships berth and depart? Of what Economic value is EPZ to our people?
6. Do you know much of the lands and assets within the Ports are owned by Bamanga Tukurs Company and Atikus Intel, and that out of the 24 tank farms, Cross River State has only one farm owned by the government? Even in the tank farm business, we are bystanders.
7. Do you know, most vessels with fuels prefer to use Calabar Jetty and it is gradually becoming the reservoir serving North and Eastern Nigeria at the detriment of Cross River dilapidated infrastructure? The lifters would prefer to go on strike rather than pay small fees to the state and no one says anything?
8. Do you know virtually all the concessionary rights in the Ports and EPZ are controlled by the Yorubas? Where are our own people, why are they not empowered? Throughout our history of independence, all major projects and contracts are given to outsiders to execute, if any Cross Riverian is issued a contract, it is to supply some stationaries or gravel, contracts that will never make us rich, but coming again for more and more as traditional beggers?
9. Do you know just before Obasanjo left office he authorized a Warf landing fees law, a resolution authorizing states with Ports to collect levies and up until now it has not been domesticated by local law for operational execution?
10. Do you know most of the priced lands within the Calabar Ports were sold to Ibos and Cross Riverians are tenants within their own state?
11. Do you know one top official in the federal government is using a pseudo company from port harcourt to divert most of the landing fees and diverting it away to private accounts and nobody is saying anything? What stops Cross River state ports authority to play that middleman role on behalf of the federal government? This mid day robbery must stop.
12. Do you know very recently, a Federal Minister while in France assigned our Solid minerals to foreign exploitation and issuing mining rights without any input from the State government? We only read it in the news. Do you know most of the Companies carting away mineral stones from Cross River state, some even exporting precious stones from our shores walk away with little or nothing coming into the state? Our people are hungry, our youths are unemployed, our fathers are dying daily of poverty, our schools and roads are dilapidated and no one is raising an alarm?
13. Remember the recent Timber scandal in China? Have you ever wondered where the seized timber valued at over one billion Naira involving the former minister of environment was sourced from? Remember the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) few months ago, released a report showing how over 1.4 million illegal rosewood logs from Nigeria, worth $300 million, were laundered into China, as reported by The Guardian? Do you remember the report which was first made exclusively available to The Guardian by Global Media Max, a strategic communications services agent to the EIA, claimed that multiple independent sources told undercover investigators that over $1 million was paid to top Nigerian officials to release the woods stopped by Chinese authorities? Now these are some uncomfortable truths you may not have thought about. From Where did they source the wood? We know it was not Enugu, Kaduna or Sokoto, because they do not have timber, do you know Timber worth almost a billion Naira was stolen probably from our forest and we are here our old fathers cannot be paid pensions? Do you think it was stolen with local collaborators? Its time we shine our eyes to what’s going on in our dear state.
14. Do you know the bulk of portions of Ikom Calabar road were contracted to our own brothers from Cross River state who have abandoned it to decay killing our mothers daily and causing unknown hardships to the people? Do you know a federal contractor handling a portion of the road attempted to take the state government to court for attempting to intervene in a portion of the road they got as a federal contract? Certainly some elephants in the room are too big to touch and we must live according to their dictates.
15. Do you know our Cash Crop plantations which would have served as source of income to our dear state, is rather a bedrock for communal conflicts, brothers killing brothers because of some political appointees who prefer to be landlords and convert their villagers to peasant laborers? Can this kind of citizen docility happen in Akwa Ibom or any Ibo state in Nigeria?
16. For almost the past 18 years, our political leaders prefer to empower outsiders, Ibos, Yorubas and foreigners when it comes to Capital Projects Contracts. Our own people are intentionally given peanuts so they can never develop financial muscles and be independent? Check out all Capital Projects in the State past 20 years, check out who it was contracted to.
17. Tell me out of the numerous companies in EPZ, how many Cross Riverians work there? Consciously or otherwise, have we become tenants in our own land? Recently we know of a Chinese Company having 200 to 500 employees, have you bothered to ask how many Cross Riverians work there? If our people cannot be employed, our government lack the legal and administrative framework to charge tenancy fees, of what value is citing what I will call a “National Artifacts” or EPZ in Cross River State?
18. It is obvious the state is gradually industrializing, Capital flowing in through the tank farms and other companies within EPZ, but is the corresponding after-effect massive poverty and joblessness amongst our people. Are we better off today than how we were 20 years ago?
19. In all history, if you fail to take charge of your life, others will use you to achieve their successful goals. Its time we stop fighting, cursing and bringing one another down, its time we work together and take back what rightly belongs to us all. We cannot continue to be tenants in our own land. If Think Cross River brand must be achieved, if the worlds destination must continue to be Cross River, then the Political Leadership should start empowering our people, not with Keke Napep and sewing machines, but empowerment that will make them Entrepreneurs with an edge. The truth is bitter, but someone has to say it!
Princewill Odidi
is a Social Commentator writing from Atlanta, USA.
Efio-Ita Nyok
