Auditing the Ayade’s Led Administration is a Constitutional Obligation; yes I will audit the administration – Eyo Ekpo.
An Exclusive Interview with Social Democratic Party Governorship Candidate Barr. Eyo Ekpo with the Founder & Publisher of Cross RIVER Times, Mr. Victor Ekpo Ita IV.
Cross River Times
Some say you are stubborn and strict; dose this describe your person
E.O.E
Whoever says I am stubborn or strict, does not know me. Whoever will say so has no idea about me, who I am, what I am, my upbringing, my background , what I profess and my ethics ,I don’t know what being stubborn means and whoever says so is probably being negative.
Things are always said about people in this country. I guess because public offices has largely been abused we tend to assume that whatever is said that is bad about a public officer is also true, it unfortunate this is the impression we have on public officers, I will like to think that whenever and wherever my records public or private sector are looked out, I will never be found wanting
I come from a very long heritage of public service, it is not something I started, it is not something my father or my grandfather started .Public service in my family goes as far back as 4th generations.
If a name means something, it means a lot to me. My father (General Ekpo) was vice president in this country although chief of staff, that is the military equivalent of vice president for over 7 years and up till now, no blemish against his name .Same as my grandfather who was the super attendant of schools for the Methodist church and same with my great grandfather who was a community leader, a member of various community organization s and so on still without blemish. So I can go and spoil my families name, when your name means a lot to you, you really have to warn yourself of a lot of things.
I have always tried to carry out my duties in the public, responsibility with integrity, competence, transparency with dedication, so far I have I have not been found wanting.
I am pretty certain that when I get into office next year it is that same code of ethical conduct that will come to the fore and the people of Cross River State will benefit greatly from that.
The challenge of Cross River is not money, it is not finance, it is leadership, and it is governance,
Cross River State is suffering from a dire challenge of competence in governance, once you have good governance then the solution to your problem as a state begins to be a lot clearer.
Cross River Times
It is Report that the Cross River dream died when the Liyel Imoke Led administration was sworn into office back in 2007 do you share in that believe
E.O.E.
I won’t say the cross river dream died, this is a state, it will not love all of us and in the fullness of time, the desire of our people for quality leadership will eventually prevail.
Cross River Times
What will your Government do about the State’s depleting resources
E.O.E
Our resources are not going down, let be clear about this, Cross River State is blessed with human resources firstly; we have the highest or second highest literacy rate in the country. I know in the last 3 years, our educational sector has been badly managed, so as the health care system but those are temporary, we have deep human resource, compared to other part of the country, with natural resources, large Land mass for arable cropping not just subsistent farming which a lot of us are doing today, We have to turn way from subsistent farming to cash cropping, we have mineral resources.
Cross River Times
Is the Ayade Rice revolution a welcome idea, will you sustain it if elected
E.O.E
It is badly done, what is the meaning of rice city. Go spend a day in a week there and look what goes in and what comes out, what do you see, it is a project right ,you should have been hearing about new business being done, new horizon being opened, new customers coming up ,I have not been told about any such thing, so I don’t know about rice city project, let talk about things that are real not phantom.
Cross River Times
People wish to see a new cross river that carries the younger generation along. When you are sworn in as governor what future do you foresee for youths in Cross River
E.O.E.
My deputy governor nominee is 35 years, if I don’t see a future in cross river state, I don’t think I would have done that, when Donald Duke was governor of cross river, he was 37 years.
Cross River Times
Some will argue with you that the original plan for picking your running mate was as a result of politics, being that you are from South and he is from the Central Senatorial District and because winning the election requires support both regions
E.O.E
That is not a bad thing or will you prefer I select a deputy governor from the Southern Senatorial District .The man is referred to this experience and I have already clarified what he will be doing, Of course it is politics. Should it be parochialism, if it was that I would have gone to the south and select someone I can live with, but no cross river is a state that is made up of various people from three senatorial district have always been enjoined to be fair and equitable in our decision making, the governor is from the North, definitely have no other region to select my deputy from except the central especially when the APC is possible producing someone from the central. What else makes sense ?making all calculation, the central seem to be the best place to get a deputy from, I just don’t take anybody whereas the central have a wide range of people who will be more than happy even for the SDP to be deputy governors. It is a deliberate plan, you can see the choices made by the PDP and APC but am not going to comment on it because they speaks for themselves the man in question has experience, having worked with Sahara Energy is project manager, also he is also currently a lecturer in engineering CRUTECH, cross river will be a work in progress with this man.
Cross River Times
The state of Public Education is something else and it bothers a lot of people, having this opportunity to speak one on one with someone who intends to take the highest political office in the state, I like know if education will be your government’s top priority
E.O.E.
First of all, we will re-work teachers training and then focus teacher training on STEM, that is, Science, Technology, Engineering And Mathematics and next will be rigid about the quality of our teachers and what you demand from our teachers, fix the advancement to the success of their students and their pupils .You will not be promoted if our pass rates are low, you will not be promoted if students are found on the street when they should be in class rooms and I will go round checking because that’s my job, you will also not be promoted if Cultism is rampart in your school. We start by establishing STEM because the future lies with Science and Technology.
We will then re-order the prioritizing of our spending on capital projects, I have no business doing any rice city, I have no business doing any super high way If the future of this state is badly educated. So, first priority of our spending will be Law and order, maintaining security.
Soft infrastructures – this is the hidden strength of the state, talking about our education, our health etc. so base on that, we undergo teacher training with the STEM program, curriculum reviews, and then we go to the physical infrastructures. I want to spend money on upgrading the quality of our teachers; sending them out for study, also to set the standard of entry into schools, to set standards for primary education.
Also our CRUTECH, we have to find a way to get more funding for our university and the only way to do that is by working collaboratively with the private sector. Why is it that our private sector is not interested in supporting R and D in our tertiary institution? It is simple, the government is too draconian on wanting to control the tertiary education. They think that providing education for all must be free. But no!, it doesn’t have to be free. Education is very expensive; training one university student in a year can come up to 3 million naira that is for you to get quality and value out of the university student. You must be prepared to spend at least 3 million naira per student and per annum.
Cross River Times
I really want to know what are your plans for the State’s public service
E.O.E
Let me start by setting out the four pillars in which my government plans of action will stand
Governance- this is the number one, the first. To restore just basic principles, values, system of governance, ranging from the executive council, traditional rulers councils, local government systems, and correlation, the agency of law and order and security.
When you put all that together, you have a good government
Second pillar is our soft infrastructure, get back to it try to fund soft infrastructure. Those days we brought NGOs into that space in a big way from 1999-2007 even to 2015, they have all gone, and we need to bring them back.
The third is hard infrastructure; this includes roads, bridges, power and all that. Soft infrastructures are what make hard infrastructures useful.
Finally, our heritage, our tourism, our and law and order, our clean and green, our peoples paradise; that’s our heritage and that’s what actually brought people to cross river.
When you focus on this four and your planning takes these four pillars into count then we will be okay. The truth is no matter what we earn as a state, it would never be enough for cross river state. We have a governor who has decided that he will short down all private enterprise, except perhaps what his brothers and their colonies are doing. And then increase the state dependency on a very narrow earning capacity. As of 2017, the beginning of last year precisely, we were averaging about 3.9 billion per month, FAQs, IGR, all put together our recurrent bill was 6.2 billion, so every month there was a deficit. Total deficit last year was about 40 billion naira.
How will you not have impress because right now it is empty. When small money comes, the commissioner empties it; which was not happening in cross river state.
Without good governance, everything I have talked about will not happen. We don’t have executive council meetings any longer, we have not had local government elections in over 3 years, our traditional institution has been rendered useless, and the relationship with the agencies of law and order is very bad. I was told that whenever certain senior members of the security, law and enforcement community comes into the state, the governor does not bother to see them until weeks. In one particular case, months after they had reported to duty.
Cross River Times
Some will argue that the state does not have resources to conduct the local government election
E.O.E
But we have resources to do super highway, Rice city, Deep Seaport and Garment factory.
Cross River Times
There will say it’s a matter of priority
E.O.E.
Yes, wrong priority, that’s why we have no government in cross river state. We don’t have a government; we have a governor who takes decision in a very close circle of 2, 3, or 4. No explanation as to why decisions are taken, no picture of the future, which is what planning gives to you.
No action plan of any kind, for any sector. He just wakes up in the morning and takes decisions.
So that’s what I am saying, wrong priorities! How can he not prioritized good governance. If you are not collective, if you don’t appoint responsible people, if you do not task them, if you don’t requires plans to be brought, discussed, agreed, budgeted for and money released for those plans, you will never have good governance.
No one can tell you that in cross river state since 2015 any money was spent according to a particular plan that was stated in a budget speech, defined in a budget speech, defined in a budget, detailed in a budget breakdown and then brought forward as a plan.
Cross River Times
In a private discussion with someone, he alleged that the present governor has enjoyed free money from federal government more than other governor in the history of the state.
Talking about the Paris club refunds and FG bailouts, what’s your take on that
E.O.E
I don’t know how much we have received and I don’t think any citizen of cross river state knows for a fact, we only know what has been published, we don’t have any way of verification, contrast that to Kaduna state where the governor stated that they are going to receive XYZ and spend it on this and this, first we will put it into the budget, it will be appropriated because it is income of the state, then we will spend 1, 2, 3. This is what the budget will look like. You see, that is contrast, so I don’t know how much he has received, but I know that we have wasted a lot of money. That’s the fact.
Because despite all the bailout funds that we got, we haven’t seen anything I would have applied our bailout fund at the very rate 60 percent to capital if not higher. That’s if I had the opportunity. Even better I wouldn’t have spent the money immediately; I would have used it as equity for vital projects. So it might have gone to World Bank, or to the African development bank with them together with us, complete our ramp projects, let’s do a ramp face two.
Invite private sector entity to come and bid to build a toll road from here to somewhere.
I would have done all that with all that money. But nobody in cross river can explain what happened to those funds and there are gone. We have nothing to show for it.
Cross River Times
If elected, will you audit this Government
E.O.E
There is an obligation for all public expenditure to be audited every year, we will do our audit, standard. It is a constitutional obligation.
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