I’ve facilitated unprecedented infrastructural dev’t in my fed. constituency —Hon Daniel Asuquo

Nobody could say it better than he did, his words: ‘But infrastructural development in my federal constituency, with due respect… there is no legislator, no executive governor, not deputy, that can boast of development in Akamkpa/Biase like I do. 

‘Now all the roads, you’ll see that we have intervened: in Biase, we have the Ikot Ana Road, we intervened; we have the Betem road, we intervened; we have the farm road… Anyways, there are about five roads in Biase that we intervened.

‘Now, if you talk of water projects, we did most of the water projects in Biase. There is almost no community that do not have water projects that really was suffering from water that we did not intervene. We talk about eleven wards in Biase, so I have projects. 

‘We have police station we built in Ere, we have market stores we built in Ere too, we have school buildings between Ere North and South. I am moving light from Ikut community back to the Ere axis because they are sharing border with the Igbo people, they always cut them out because of their communal crisis. So, we are redirecting light from Ikut into the Ere communities. 

‘You go to Biakpan ward, we facilitated the building of a modern school there, we have a modern Assembly Hall that is in Biakpan facilitated by me. Now, we have a water project that is ongoing there to revive a community project. We have an electricity project there in Biakpan. 

‘In Ikut, I am doing a personal project there, it is called principal’s quarters. It is a N5 million project. When I ran elections in 2011, I made a promise that the communities that comes with the highest number of votes, I was going to give them a N5 million personal project: one was in Akamkpa, one in Ere, one in Ojuk South, with Abayonge water project.

‘You come to Etonu community, I have built 50 stores market, we’ve done solar street light projects, we’ve done in Ekleto Otu… the same. Now, you go to Abayongo where the House of Assembly member is from, we have a couple of water projects there. We’ve done  employments and all that. 

‘We have Ehom ward, we’ve water projects there, we’ve a school project there, we have a rural road projects there.

‘When you go to Akpet and Bini, we did road… You know Chief O. Emmanuel Evom, the ring road to his house…tarred, I facilitated it, you go there, they’ll show you all my projects there, then water projects and I think a school block, I facilitated it. 

‘You go to Abini the same thing, you go to Agwagune where the Deputy Governor and Emile Inyang comes from we have water projects, done school block in that area, we’ve empowered the people too.

‘So, you come down to across the river, which is difficult, you have the Umon area, what we did because we couldn’t access them, we now built a 6  classroom block; for the youths, we donated a community speed boat which is personal, which they use to ply the river ways. And before Jimmy Onoyom died, we did another project in his area of Umon which was a school with solar powered light. 

‘Now you come to where Ana is from, the immediate past Chairman of Biase, we have a school there. And that is why the former House of Assembly member who tried to run against me two times, he had nothing to show, I always win him even in his community; because I have that project there in his community. We have another one at the other side of his community. And then the road… We are the one doing the access road. They have water there. So, I can go on and on. 

‘Then you come to Akamkpa of course, common on, if you go to where I come from, it is the most developed ward in the 21 wards because charity begins at home:  Everywhere is tarred, street lights, water, classroom blocks; you go to the next ward, Awi I have classroom blocks, water projects, street light in all the communities in Awi; you go to Mbarokom, the only new road they’ve seen there is facilitated by me with street light and water projects; you go to the Constituency 2 even where George Ubeng comes from, my brother they’ve all been in government, they didn’t do anything: the only electricity projects that is in that community now, which is the only thing they’ve driven there is facilitated by me. You go to where Awo Inyang comes from the APC, we have water projects, street lights projects; you go to Mfamosin, you will see our projects there when you’re passing with street light projects and all that; you go to Ojuk South we have water projects, we have schools, we also renovated a health centre there I think, and of course, in all of this we have employments, we have market women assistance, educational assistance in millions; go to Oban community, today the facelift you see: the ring road with street light everywhere, that is my work; you go Eku ward where the House of Assembly member Charles Ekpe comes from, you see water projects, street lights projects, school projects; you go to Ikpai which is the end, we have water, street lights, and school projects. And in all of these communities, we reach out to them too at different times: with empowerment, finance, support programmes’, he said. 

Essence of representation 

Asuquo further gave an insight into his perspective of political representation which for him hinges on legacies. 

He said that ‘So, for me in 21 wards, in 9 years we have done at least, to the expectations of the people, 70 percent. Which has never happened, there was House of Representatives member before me, of course you know: Prince Orok Agbor, Alex Ukam. For us representation is all about keeping legacies. 

‘Because PDP is a family, we don’t try to say this one did this, this one did that, we take it as PDP. If you look at 2019 elections, I can tell you for free, that most of the projects you see in Cross River state, National Assembly members projects constitute why people are still following PDP, how many state government projects have you seen around? The state government is doing big ticket projects, we are doing small, rural interventionist projects. Do you understand? That’s the melting point where the state and the national should be seen as working together. But unfortunately, third columnists want to think that they can separate it. It’s not possible. We are all here for service, what we have done will speak for us.’ he concluded.