A list of forty seven failed promises of Sen. Prof. Benedict B. Ayade the Executive Governor of Cross River state has popped up online. This promises were made between 2015 and 2022.
It popped up on Monday through the instrumentality of journalist and activist, Agba Jalingo who is facing terrorism and felony charges at a federal high court. He published it on his social media handle.
These promises touch on the 274km superhighway; Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs; deep-sea port; Ikom chocolate stores, garment factory; poles, piles and pylons; Calavegas; medical insurance, Ayadecare; toothpick company; etc.
The list goes as follows:
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 sea port 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 N70billion 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 merchandize 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 50k and below?
36. Without stopping indigenes 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 kisime Noddles in the market?
40. With just food on the table for a few?
41. Without delivering the Ugep polytechnic?
42. Without delivering the Ogoja Polytechnic?
43. Without take-off of Teachers Institute in Biase LGA?
44. Without take-off of Canadian School in Obudu?
45. Without a solar panel manufacturing factory, opposite Brigadier Ally cantonment?
46. Without a Cambodian King grass plantation that grows with lush, to solve the farmers/herders crises in Nigeria and raise revenue for our State?
47. Without a social housing estate for the Aborigines of Obudu ranch?
According to Jalingo, ‘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’.
