By Idowu Bankole

Former Aviation Minister, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode has praised the Governor of Cross River State, Professor Ben Ayade over recent developmental strides in the state, during his visit to Cross River state.

The Former Aviation Minister, Fani-Kayode in a press conference told journalists that he was completely blown away by the speed at which the Governor is transforming the fortunes of the state, saying that the Governor, Prof Ben Ayade is bringing the state to the 21st century, waking everybody up, creating employment.

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“Let me start by telling you why am here, what my mission is and what I have been trying to do for the last few days since last week Thursday when we left Abuja. Once I have done that I will say a few words about what I saw here.”

“The background to this visit is the fact that since last week Thursday, I have been on a tour of a number of states to see a number of governors in this country and we have covered a lot of ground.”

“And in terms of detail, for all this project, all these things I was absolutely blown over the amount of detail the governor seems to know. And you can just by listening to him on some of this video. He knew everything about every aspect of every project and you will testify to that yourself.”

“It’s quite an extraordinary ability to do that and I was very impressed, and each of this projects is going to be completed, those that are not completed are going to be completed before he leaves. And some of them, for example, the first one we went to that’s the garment factory has about 3,000 workers already all wearing a yellow shirt and producing things like a face mask and so many other things right now providing employment.”

“Apart from all this that I have said, there is also something that I found interesting, this industrial park that he has created there, he built it out of nothing as you know.”

Recalling the Administration of the former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,  where he served as first, A senior Special adviser and later as an Aviation Minister, Fani-Kayode stated that, “Many Nigerians forget what things were like in the past once development comes. I remember during Obasanjo regime and there was so much infrastructure of development over the 8years that he was there and the economy was improved, everything changed within 8years in this country, we became a nation that could hold her head up high again.”

“And people forgot that 8years before when he came in, that the country was on the verge of disintegration, where we owed everybody, it was a mess and there was nothing working, by the time he left, we had paid off our international debt.”

“We weren’t owing to anybody, infrastructure developed, the economy was stabilized. This is verifiable facts but people seems to forget 2, 3 years after you left office.”

“And that’s why it’s important for us to keep emphasizing where a governor or government gets it right so that people don’t forget.”

On Professor Ben Ayade turning the state around, Fani-Kayode said, “The situation of cross river state is a very interesting one as far as am concerned. My own perception of it is this, this was a civil service state before, and basically there was no money coming in other than at the end of the month the civil servants will collect their salaries and things will go on as it’s always gone on.”

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“But under Governor Ayade, what has happened is very different, he has transformed this state from being a civil service state into an industrial state and I will explain why I said that.”

“Before he came here, there were no industries in this state at all. There was an attempt to do one factory but it collapsed, it didn’t work. Within the period that he has been here, he has established 33 functional industrial complexes, functional factories that are ongoing and have created employment that is working.”

‘This is an extraordinary achievement, and I am flabbergasted honestly because I called one of the previous governors when we finished the tour ( I won’t mention his name) and I said look, how come when you were there, it was different and now look at what has happened in a number of years, and  which he confirmed to be a fact, and that is a great achievement that I think the country, the party (PDP) and all of us as Nigerians ought to appreciate.”

“He is transforming the fortunes of this state,  bringing it to the 21st century, waking everybody up, creating employment and by the time he finishes, Calabar and Cross Rivers will be a very different place.”

“He has an industrial park, we saw the one he made in this senatorial district, he has an industrial park, am believed am right to say in every single senatorial district which he has built out of nothing. Tarred road, light and so on and everything is functional. He is doing all this project and what is he getting from the federal government? he has the second-lowest amount in terms of revenue allocation. So where is he getting the resources to do all this I really don’t know, but he is doing it, he is getting it, he is paying salaries, he is not owing anybody, he is not borrowing money and these are things we should celebrate and these are efforts that we should talk about and we should commend him and his government for.”

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