Federal Government to construct dams in order to achieve a viable agro
sector as well as sustaining it’s industrialization drive.
Governor Ben Ayade solicited the support Wednesday, in Calabar when he
received the Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Water
Resources, Mrs. Comfort Ekaro who is on her maiden tour of Nigeria’s 12
basin development authorities in his office in Calabar, where he pointed
out that water remains a vital component in the planning of the state’s
development.
“There is a relationship between water abundance and hospitality. If you
don’t have adequate water, you can’t provide that kind of hospitality that
is expected. Cross River is the cleanest and the neatest state and you
can’t do that in the absence of water,” Ayade said.
On the value the development of water resources will add to the state, the
governor disclosed: “Cross River is participating under the accelerated
agric development program, we are also actively involved in so many value
chains particularly maize, yellow maize, soya bean; we are doing cocoa, we
are doing banana and we are doing rice.
“We have built industries that will give full start-to-end process
application and value addition. We have the cocoa processing plant in
Ikom, we have the vitamin rice processing mill in Ogoja, we have the seed
and seedling factory and we have an ultramodern feed mill that will
require so much of soya bean and then we have the integrated poultry. In
all of these, we can’t sustain the massive requirement of maize, soya
bean, and rice to feed our industries without dams, without irrigation.
Obviously Cross River State is blessed; you have to cross a river to get
to almost everywhere.”
Ayade who also stressed the need for “a relationship with the ministry of
water resources that is deeper than mere politics,” lamented the
peculiarities of the state’s demography which he said required special
attention.
“All the indices on the demography prove that Cross River State is in
critical need of the federal government attention. Unfortunately, what has
happened is that social reverse stoichiometry is the one in place. The
smaller and more compact you are, the more resources you have, the more
money you get which negates the African theory of providing a shoulder for
a weaker partner and brother to lean on. Cross River State is almost on
its knees,” Ayade said and solicited the country’s budget to be subjected
to geographical sensitivity analysis in order to ensure a fair
distribution of resources.
Cross River currently leads in the comity of States implementing the
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) action plans with five local
government areas declared Open Defecation Free so far.
Mrs. Ekaro, in her remarks solicited the state’s support in the provision
of clean, safe and potable water for residents as well as sustaining the
gains on sanitation.
“You have already supported (but), we need more so that we can have good
sanitation, we have toilets everywhere so that people don’t go defecating
outside and you know the problem associated with that-girls are pressed
late in the night and they have to go out, they could be raped; even with
men, there could be snakes around and somebody had been bitten by a snake.
There was a report and of course, he died from there- just trying to
defecate outside,” she said.
Ekaro, while hinting that this was her first point of call outside her
office since her resumption as permanent secretary in February, commended
the giant strides made by the Ayade’s administration, describing them as
“mind blowing.”