Daily Independent (Lagos)
Daniel Kanu
2 January 2009
interview
Cross River State Governor, Liyel Imoke was at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos en route Abuja recently when he briefly talk to reporters.
Imoke, who dwelt so much on how to transform the tourist state, said his government would accomplish the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and turn the state into a desired destination.
Senior Correspondent, Daniel Kanu was there.
Excerpts.
By the time your tenure runs out, you would have taken Cross River State to a point. Where exactly are you looking at?
The truth is that I have a vow that I have made to the good people of my state and that pledge is to deliver democracy dividends that will positively impact on the lives of my people. I will stop at nothing to ensure that I put smiles on their faces. This is not a government of much talk and no action. We talk less and give the real action attention.
Our vision is to make every Cross Riverian have better quality of life and greater income than they had when we came into office. Even as we embark on these projects, with what we have as public resources, we still focus on social welfare for the people. At the moment, all 18 public hospitals in the state are undergoing upgrading to bring them up to quality standard. In education, our first 60 secondary schools are being upgraded to meet the Cross River State standard. About 100 primary schools are receiving same attention. We have already awarded contract to commence the rural roads development programme. We have identified 29 roads in each council area. For each road, we engaged the council areas and made them understand our vision for agriculture and the need to begin with roads that have direct impact on the movement of farm produce. We did not want to get involved in building roads that will not have any direct bearing on the evacuation or transportation of farm produce. So, the councils reasoned with us and identified roads that lead to farm areas for development. These are the most critical roads that will help us create value. These projects will be driven by what we have as public finance while the flagship projects, which I mentioned earlier, will be driven by the private sector.
Specifically, what visions do you have and want to achieve in the years ahead?
As I have always said, it is a vision of total transformation of the state. My predecessor already laid a solid foundation so we will also build on that and improve upon it.
But my vision for Cross River is to make it the destination. Sometimes, a budget does not reflect all that is encapsulated in a vision. The reason is that a budget reflects intent with regard to public spending. A lot of what we are doing have a significant element of private sector participation in them which may not be captured in terms of numbers in the budget. The focus is rather on the programmes and initiatives. We want to make Cross River a destination by building on areas of focus where we have a comparative advantage: tourism and agriculture. In so doing, we must not neglect the fact that we have responsibility, as a government, to address the challenges of social welfare and ensuring that people have access to qualitative education and at the very least, have access to affordable healthcare. The first obligation of government is to address these social and economic issues. The next obligation of government is to develop the economy. Some people have and believe in the trickledown theory; develop the economy first and every other thing will fall in. I am not of that school. I have a responsibility, as governor, to serve those who need government most: the poor people, who will never have access to the governor or government. We must start by serving them. So, if you look at it, we are the first state in the country that will be introducing a social welfare scheme, as challenging as it is. We think we cannot continue to develop the economy without addressing the needs of the most vulnerable of the society. We don't address these fundamentals here. We always focus on infrastructure. So, the man who is building roads is a good governor but the one who focuses on these fundamentals is not such a good governor. But we will take that risk and we are already addressing that. For us, we want to meet every MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). If Nigeria does not meet the MDGs, Cross River State will.
What is your government's financial strength at financing all the projects?
First of all, what is important is to ensure that we judiciously use the ones we generate. So, we are conscious of our spending so that no sector will be left behind. Our financial muscles may not be as solid as that of some states but what matters most is the careful spending that you apply and the need-meeting nature of the projects embarked on.
That was why I also said that some key projects may not be captured in our budget. Their development will be driven by the private sector. So, in trying to actualise the vision of Cross River State as a destination for business, for leisure and for commerce, we want to tap into our natural resources. We have God-given assets that give us a comparative advantage. So, in developing the state as a destination, we looked at a lot of things already present. We looked at the ports, we have the Tinapa, the free trade zone, we have industries coming in and we have peace. We have an environment and weather that is conducive and we have basic infrastructure. So, we want to make this place, a place for meeting and conferencing. With the private sector, we are going to develop a conference centre and a five star hotel complimenting it. With the private sector too, we are going to work on a theme park to compliment Tinapa. With the private sector also, we are going to develop an energy city, which to us, is the flagship. It will be on the peninsula. It is designed to provide logistics and facilities as well as industrial space for the oil industry. Our focus is largely on local content.
The local content policy is coming into place and we believe that in a couple of years it will take root. We believe that if the law is passed and the companies have limited time to find where to settle, we can take advantage of that. We also believe that we can strategically place ourselves to take advantage of some developments in the country. The gas master plan has Calabar as a hub for the eastern flank. Strategically, we are positioning ourselves to take advantage of that. Of course, the energy city has two components: the energy park and the logistic hand. Then, the residential area, which is the energy city, will have high-end residences and a golf resort. These will help us position ourselves as the destination for business, leisure, conferencing, etc. we are doing these because of the level of investment that has already been made by my predecessor and friend, Donald Duke, in tourism development. We have to take it to a level where that vision is fully realised. Again, you must realise that we are not a rich state. Some states get 10 times what we get every month. But we are not going to constrain ourselves to our poverty. If you constrain yourself to your budget and think you can develop within the limits of the budget, then you go nowhere. We believe that every project we go into is viable. We do not go into projects that do not make sense. For instance, going into the energy city, we had to test the market. We did a feasibility study. We met with the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). We met with stakeholders in the sector and we are encouraged. So, we engaged a bank as a financial adviser for the project. If it is not viable, banks will not go for it. So, we take more interest in projects that make sense. Again, looking at the theme park, we did a study and found out that there is nothing like that in West Africa as a sub region. And then we got back to think of what we could do. We are now more like facilitator for the project.
The theme park is more like an amusement park. But it is themed to reflect our history and culture. If you have been to Abuja where they have a small amusement park, owners of that place have been smiling to the banks since it was opened. Reason: if you look around, you will find that you hardly find a place in Nigeria where you can go to take a holiday that has value. We want to create that place here in Cross River State. For this project, we have different groups doing different aspects of the studies. Jack Rouse is doing the concept design. KPMG is doing the feasibility study and another group is doing the marketing studies. Once we are through with that and it starts looking good, we engage a financial adviser who now structures the financing using the private sector. That is how we are developing all our projects.
You seem to dwell much on tourism and less on agriculture...
(Cuts in) Not, at all. Have you forgotten that we have a solid rich agricultural background. Agriculture, to me, is ultimately going to be the greatest catalyst to our development. Agriculture, as it were, presents opportunities for every community and every family in Cross River. But our focus is not just to produce food and put on the tables. Our focus goes beyond that. We want to first identify markets for our products. We don't want to start producing cassava and suddenly find out that we don't know what to do with the yield. So, we must first identify the markets and where possible, get commitments from those markets. But we are challenging ourselves. We believe, with Barack Obama, that crude oil is not the fuel of the future. Bio fuels and alternative sources of energy are fuels for the future. So, if you have an oil palm tree in your compound, you can look at it as a palm tree that is there for palm oil or palm wine for you. You can also look at it as a bio fuel tree. A lot of people in Nigeria still see it as a tree for palm oil. But I see it differently. For me, palm plantations are not for palm oil, but for bio fuel. I see in every palm tree, bio fuel. For us, we want to develop it to the point where we can get bio fuel from them. In the next five or six years, we probably will be the first state in the country that can refine bio fuel and that will be in great demand. We are working with the NNPC to first develop 5,000 hectares of land for this. We also have a programme that will in 10 years cover Cross River State with either oil palm tree of jatropha trees. Once we achieve that, then you have an economy. So, you have tourism and then agriculture. But in agriculture, we are developing it to meet market demands.
What are the measures put in place to guarantee deadlines?
We have a strategic project team in place made up of all exco members even though the hub is special projects and governor's office and events management. But we have a team in which every member plays a strategic role. We meet regularly to ensure we are driving special projects and events to meet desired goals. We want to ensure that 2009 is for us, a year when we complete all our studies and project finance. 2010 will be for us a year when we commence building and that will stretch into 2011. We expect that by 2012, a lot of them will be up and running. The truth is that this government will fulfil its electoral mandate.
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