By Linus Obogo
On May 29, 2015, he burst forth with a messianic zest, full of gusto and bravura of a leader who knew the way, ready to go the way in order to show the way. Assuming office literally as an undertaker then, with the state in a near economic comatose, Ayade set sail with fidelity in God, courage in his heart, belief in his mission and with an assured victory in his soul to confront the odds stacked against him as a then fledgling governor. For a state that was on a razor edge between renewal and collapse, between life and despair, Ayade would, rather than inter it, begin the process of oxygenating and resuscitating the anemic state with a view to ultimately getting it out of the ‘intensive care unit’ (ICU). With an unfaltering determination, the governor knew that to dream lofty dreams, dare mighty things, win glorious triumphs, he must not ensconce himself in complacency and self-pity but be creative and adopt strategies to address the challenges that confronted the state.
It was for this reason that his ascension into the governance architecture of the state was welcomed by many with such messianic hallelujah. Instructively, six years down the line, Ayade has neither veered off the tracks nor cut short the expectations of many who hold him in such redemptive awe.
As a solution architect, the governor sees every challenge, every stricture and obstacle in his way as an opportunity to adroitly prove his resourcefulness and ingenuity in tackling the many socioeconomic miasmas he inherited.
A leader with I-can-do spirit, just when you doubt Ayade’s capacity, he springs forth and astounds you, leaving you captive and speechless. Like the biblical Joseph, Ayade saw a vision and dreamed dreams. He dreamed of a state that was decoupled from the begging bowl of the federation account. And like Nostradamus, he had long seen our tomorrow while we slumbered and snored. He envisioned our tomorrow with a determination to create a prosperity agenda.
The fight to claw back the state from its economic doldrums seemed daunting. But for the governor, it was not about the dog in the fight but rather the fight in the dog. And before long, he would show his brains and brawn aplenty in the days and years to come. With a near zero allocation from the federal purse and a lean internally generated revenue, many in his position would have baulked or thrown in the towel and screamed in helplessness, but the governor has continued to keep his eyes on the ball while he focuses on his lofty dreams to hew a pathway to the state’s economic Eldorado in a bid to put the future in our hands and wealth in our pockets. With a headstrong approach and a passion to achieve, Governor Ayade would set out punching above his weight and beyond the carrying capacity of the state with a view to recalibrating what was then a tottering economy.
From a bold and daring move, characterized by a leap of faith and audacity of hope, would sprout images of triumphs and successes wrapped in exhilarating chapters of an engrossing industrialisation story. A leader on a mission to transform, Ayade wended his charted way from the well-worn and pervasive transactional leadership style already native to his peers in the country to that of a transformational one. For him, service to others is the rent he must pay and which he has been paying.
Typically embodying the mantra: ‘people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care’, the teacher-turned Senator-cum governor and Knight of Saint John (KSJ) International, would soon astound with a panoply of multibillion naira projects across the state, which sources of funding were somewhat of a mystery to Cross Riverians, but not so to Ayade, the self-styled inventor of “Intellectual Money” and proponent of “Other People’s Money (OPM). The monthly federal allocation to Cross River hovers between N1.8billion and N2billion, this is even before deductions for the indebtedness the state is exposed to and with a lid on borrowing tightly sealed. Ranging from the Calabar Garment Factory, the Rice Seedling and Seeds Multiplication Centre, Calabar Pharmaceutical Company (Calapharm), the 56 megawatts power plant, noodles manufacturing factory, chicken processing plant with capacity to process 600,000 birds per day, the feeds mill factory, already completed and located in Calabar, Southern Senatorial Zone, the 30, 000 metric tons of Cocoa Processing Factory, in Ikom, a toothpick factory in Ekori, Yakurr, the automated and vitaminzed rice mill in Ogoja, among others, Ayade has left no one in doubt about the clarity and acuity of his vision. On road infrastructure, the state has been a beehive of construction activities with construction projects ongoing at across the state. With more than half of the 147 kilometre-road already asphalted at the Mfom-Yala-Ogoja-Bekwarra-Obudu ranch road; the dualization of the 20-kilometre Tinapa/Odukpani federal highway; the East/West Boki road as well as the 275 kilometre super highway from Bakassi to Katsina-Ala, there cannot be any greater commitment to infrastructural development than the governor has demonstrated in the nearly six years of his administration.
Also ongoing is the construction of 5.7kilometers of international cargo and passenger airport in Obudu Local Government Area of the state. On completion, the airport is expected to haul a large export of Irish potatoes and ornamental flowers which are currently being cultivated. This is also in addition to ramping up footfalls into the famous Obudu Ranch Resort.
While not neglecting other sectors, Ayade has placed premium on the health of the citizenry by ensuring that a specialist hospital is established in each of the three senatorial zones. The governor has breathed life into the education sector with the construction of the first of its kind, the West African Teachers Continuing Training College in Biase Council Area of the state. This is aimed at improving the quality of teachers in the state. Also nearing completion is the British/Canadian International school. In Ayade, to whom less is given, so much more has been offered and this can only be owed principally to his financial wizardry as a propelling force in the realisation of these economically uplifting projects. For almost six years, it has been a new age, a new dawn; a time to ride without let, where every step has morphed into a stride and where every stride has been a conquest over the tides. In truth, Ayade has no doubt defied the odds. As a strong voice for state and country, there is so much that has been learned from his fortitude and strength of conviction and so much more that could still, indeed be learnt by same hypocritical society he has laboured upon to improve.
Call him a gadfly and you wouldn’t be wrong after all. Ayade has come across as that rare breed which God has fastened upon an unwashed clime to point the way. For instance, when the entire world was quaking and quivering during the outbreak of the global pandemic, with countries and states locking down and imposing restrictions, Governor Ayade laughed off the knee-jerk measure, describing it as infantile and uncommonsensical. He, instead, locked out his state, Cross River and allowed economic activities to flourish.
When other states were counting their dead, occasioned by COVID-19, Ayade was instead feasting with his subjects who had been kept alive by a simple but well thought out scientific solution such as wearing a mask. Like a prophet without honour in his own country, he was jeered and sneered at and chided by many of his colleagues in the academy of science for “misleading” his countrymen. Even the all powerful and all knowing global health institution, WHO, which initially pooh-poohed his advocacy for the wearing of nose masks did a 360-degree and humbly acknowledged and embraced Ayade’s inscrutable policy on mask wearing as the first prophylactic step pivotal to halting the spread of the global pandemic.
At 53, just a little above half a century of his life, there is so much to learn from Ayade’s narrative. A driving force behind the state’s prosperity agenda, he has continued to hold strong to his beliefs, refusing to give up on his dreams and vision for Cross River State.
•Linus Obogo is Deputy Chief Press Secretary/Speech Writer to Governor Ayade