JOE EFFIONG, UYO
Much hyped inauguration of St Gabriel Coconut Oil Factory by Vice President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo at Mkpat Enin LGA of Akwa Ibom State, has flopped after all as the vice president eventually shunned the ceremony.
The state government had issued press releases regaling the media with the inauguration of the project by the vice president scheduled for Friday, but the vice president neither showed up at the event even though he was in the state for his presidential campaign consultation, nor sent in a representative.
The was also no statement from the state to explain Osinbajo’s absence even though “Address by His Excellency, The Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo and commissioning of the project” was conspicuously listed as item 10 in the event programme.
The only person who made a passing reference to Osinbajo on the occasion was the former governor of Benue State and chairman of Udom Emmanuel Presidential Campaign Council, Sen Gabriel Suswam, who quipped that the vice president should not even be present because he shouldn’t come and share spotlight with Governor Emmanuel because both of them are presidential aspirants.
The governor who ended up inaugurating the project by himself, assisted by the wife, Martha, Suswam and other dignitaries, before embarking of facility tour of the plant, said he is a visionary leader that was why he foresaw that virgin coconut oil would bring more revenue to the state.
“Now even if they take away crude oil, we cannot be caught napping everybody will be coming here for virgin coconut oil.
“What we are doing today is to say that coconut cannot just end in coconut rice or being eaten with bread; rather we gave to turn it into a money making venture. In the next 99 years the coconut planted this year would still be yielding.”
Emmanuel said the factory, the first in Africa was most modern and ICT-compliant which could process both coconut and palm kernel without a change it even the plate.
He urged the citizens to rise up and plant coconut and palm trees as the factory was capable of processing one million coconuts a day at three shifts, and the state had so far planted more than one million stands even as it is targeting two million stands before the end of his administration.