Businessman Arthur Eze has commended the Ben Ayade administration for the high level of industrialization in Cross River State.
Eze, who spoke shortly after inspecting some industrial projects, lauded Governor Ayade for his vision and foresight, and surmised that, ‘’ I have never seen such a thing anywhere in Africa. I have travelled round East, West and North Africa, but I haven’t seen such. The people of Cross River are lucky to have this young man as governor who is creating a lot of jobs for the teeming unemployed young people with the intent to create even more and this gives hope for the future.”
“This state had oil wells, but those wells were long taken away and given to another state, but God sent you a good leader to take care of you and chart a new course for Cross River. Ayade has used the wisdom God bestowed on him to run the affairs of this state and I urge you all to join hands with him and build something that will be even more long lasting than oil, which is agriculture,” Eze added.
Disclosing possible areas of collaboration with the Cross River State government, Eze who placed orders for the supply of face shields produced from the state’s garment factory, offered: “Whatever Ayade does, I am interested in it, in fact, anyway he needs me, I will follow him because he is a young man with so much wisdom and energy.”
While being conducted round the rice seedling and seeds multiplication factory, Chief Eze promised to support the factory with 1000 bags of rice seeds, just as he requested land for the cultivation of ginger for export.
Governor Ayade, while thanking Prince Eze for his visit as well as his interest in investing in the state’s agro-alied economy, said: “Prince Arthur Eze, conscious of the philosophy of President Buhari’s Nigeria without oil road map , has decided to divert part of his wealth from oil business into agriculture, not necessarily for profit but for the philosophical basis of creating jobs, putting food on the table and creating a horizon of opportunities for young men and women, irrespective of state of origin.”
“As a state, we have invested in 33 industries and those industries cannot be run and operated by government. So we need to find a third party that will take them off government and have private investors and private men who have proven integrity, character, honour and clean money of this nature to come in and take part of those Investments, either through a concessionaire mechanism or outright privatization or a partnership on royalty of some sorts. And that has become critical and urgent for us to actually divest some of our Investment and hold back and watch, “the governor added.