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| L-R: Eyo Ekpo Esq, Liyel Imoke, DinDon Duke and Princewill Odidi |
Nyok|17 September 2018
Eyo Ekpo Eyo Esq an SDP gubernatorial aspirant in Cross River has replied social commentator Princewill Odidi in respect of his social media thread that went viral last week NegroidHaven can report authoritatively.
Ekpo argued against Odidi’s position that former Governor Liyel Imoke initiated the institutional support for most of former Governor Donald Duke’s programmes and policies. For him, it wasn’t Imoke who established Carnival Commission, Tourism Bureau, and others but Duke.
His words, ‘Liyel did not establish the Carnival Commission or the Tourism Bureau. Donald Duke did. I was the first Chair of the Carnival Commission, appointed in September 2006, with barely 3 months to reset and institutionalize Carnival organisation. We did it anyway. The Tourism Bureau was set up even earlier and Prof. Ekpo Eyo (funny the reversal in names), globally renowned archaeologist and historian was its first Chair and who brought in asset of experts to develop an organisation and a set of policies around that sector.
‘The DD Admin also set up the RAMP (rural access and mobility programme) and succeeded in getting a pipeline of AfDB funding for it, along with the State Electrification Agency. The 2 programmes executed in these sectors took CRS from 15% rural electrification and hardly any motorable roads in 1999 to 75% of “rural communities” electrified and every LGA connected to the primary road artery, by 2007.
‘Contrary to what the article says, after a semblance of an effort at continuity between 2007 and 2011, 2011-2015 saw the abandonment of continuity and the truncation of what could have been a forward-looking succession plan. The result is what CRS has today.’
In the said thread, Odidi said: ‘While Donald developed ideas and built the structures, Imoke put in place institutions that gave meaning to the ideas. For the Calabar Carnival, Imoke set up the Carnival Bureau, for Tinapa, he set up Investment Bureau, for the Ranch he set up Tourism Bureau and to ensure that future investors are not given the bureaucratic run around he made functional the Office of due process.’
The development economist, Odidi has admitted fault in his presentation, however, noting that it wasn’t intendedly deliberate.
Read original thread through this link : ‘My Forecast and Predictions 2 years before Prof Ben Ayade became Governor’: https://www.negroidhaven.org/2018/09/my-forecast-predictions-2-years-before.html?m=1
Nyok
Is the Blogger-in-Chief, Editor-in-Chief & Publisher of NegroidHaven
