I’ll dredge Calabar seaport if FG can’t, Ayade says

Gov Ben Ayade of Cross River State has stated that since the federal government has tried in vain to dredge the Calabar seaport for many years, he will now embark on the challenging task.

The governor reiterated this yesterday. He had earlier mentioned this when the new managing director of Nigeria Export Processing Zones Authority, Emmanuel Jime visited him in his office last week and appealed for his help to dredge the river to enable bigger vessels evacuate goods at the Calabar Free Trade Zone.

“I want to assure you that my government will embark on the dredging of Calabar seaport, which the federal government has tried several times unsuccessfully over many years.

“We are doing this not that the state actually has the resources to embark on such gigantic project but to see that we play our part to bolster the NEPZA initiatives in order to impact on the state.

“You are aware that we are also embarking on the construction of the Bakassi deep seaport. All these we are doing not from the federal allocation which is zero”, he said.

But the governor seriously frowned at the delay in the approval of the Environmental Impact Assessment for his government proposed 260 kilometers superhighway.

He had threatened to revoke the land allocated to the federal government for its National Park in the state, saying just as the Bauchi State government had done so and reclaimed the land on which the Yankari agames Reserve is situated, he too can do just that since the federal government has refused to approve its Superhighway project.

It is to serve as an evacuation corridor for the Bakassi deep seaport.

“National Park was a donation of the Cross River government and I am the governor. I have the right to revoke it. It is the property of the government and I own the land in trust for the people of Cross River State. So, you cannot have super-abundant effect and control over the National Park”, he said.