Imoke: Turning ruins to roads
BY DENIS UTANG
Friday February 10, 2012
Imoke
Senator Liyel Imoke, the former Governor of Cross River State assumed office in 2007. He is a man that can be likened to a cat with nine lives. Barely one year after he assumed office, the Court of Appeal, sitting in Calabar annulled his elections in July, 2008, but like a lawn tennis ball, he bounced back in the re-run election that held in August, that same year.
Before the annulment of his election, he reportedly told Cross Riverians that he was entering into a pact with them which was almost like God entering into a covenant with the children of Israel, the supposedly chosen race.
In a covenant or pact, the two parties are bound to keep to the terms of agreement, else the benefits will not flow. In respect of our creator, entering into a pact with him which is no longer restricted to the children of Israel, (thanks to His Son, Jesus Christ who shedded his blood on the Cross to atone for our sins), the people were and are still expected to keep his ordinances in order to receive his blessings.
Similarly, pacts between men are supposed to be sacrosanctly kept. Those who go into pacts with men, in their quest to gain ascendency to political offices and turn round to break the terms, usually suffer dethronement by the electorate, should they suffer setbacks like Senator Imoke.
However, those who adhere strictly to the terms of the pact, no matter the trials and tribulations, will always fall back on the electorate for the fulfillment of their political ambition. Senator Liyel Imoke, the man whose tenure elongation was recently annulled by the Supreme Court, it appears, has no worries to contend with. The reasons are legion. Among them is the fact that he has kept his terms of agreement in the pact he entered with the people of Cross River State. His ability to keep to the terms of the pact tends to diminish any negative effects that the Supreme Court Judgment would have brought to bear in his quest to go back to the Cross River State Government House.
Humanly speaking, his own atonement is in term of assiduous implementation of the policies, projects and programmes he signed in his Development Agenda and further enunciated in the Cross River State Economic Blueprint. Though they are enunciated in Agriculture, Qualitative Education, Infrastructural development, Social Security safety nets, Rural and Urban Renewal, the Growth of the Private Sector, and model healthcare delivery system, it is imperative that we analyze his rural development programs and how much they are impacting on the people. The reasons for choosing to analyze his rural development programmes are not far-fetched.
Basically, the rural dwellers constitute over 70% of the population of Cross River State, yet before the coming on board of Senator Liyel Imoke, as Governor of Cross River State, the rural communities lacked basic amenities such as access roads, pipe borne water, electricity and other infrastructure that can make life meaningful and worth living. The rural dwellers in Cross River State, hitherto, had no roads to convey food from their hamlets and farms.
This lack of access roads had provided a feasting nest for shylock middlemen who managed to meander through to buy cheap from them (the rural dwellers) and sell at ‘cut throat’ prices to the city dwellers. However, the four and half years tenure of Senator Liyel Imoke has changed all that. Today, the people of Iyamitet, who never dreamt of having a road, can proudly tell anybody that cares to listen that Liyel Imoke is their messiah. The same goes for other rural communities that have benefitted from the State Government’s rural roads development programme. There is expansion of unlimited economic gains. The prices of goods have appreciated. More people are securing gainful employment where rural roads have been constructed.
Though RUDA is still working on many other rural roads, the enormity of rural road requirements in Cross River State is exceedingly high and wide. In realization of the fact that RUDA alone cannot bring the much desired rural roads development to every nook and cranny of the rural areas, Senator Imoke in his wisdom, came up with another body called, ‘’Cross River Rural Access and Mobility Project (CR-RAMP).
CR-RAMP is complementing RUDA but with a specific slant. It is getting its funding from the State Government and the African Development Bank (ADB). Today, CR-RAMP is broadening the development of rural roads, a task started by RUDA barely few months after the former Governor of Cross River State assumed office. CR-RAMP, indeed, is currently constructing 29 rural roads in the 17 Local Government Areas of the State that have rural environs. But, before a list of the 17 roads being handled by CR-RAMP, it is pertinent to take a cursory look at the rural roads that are being handled by the Cross River State Rural Development Agency (RUDA), and their status.
In truth, which is verifiable, the Rural Development Agency has completed not less than 19 roads, while others are at various levels of completion. Those completed include Assiga New/Old Town – Ekpeti-Inyinma-Ikom Calabar high way, covering a distance of 9.1 kilometres, with a thirty metre span bridge. Other roads that have also attained 100% status are Itigidi-Adadama road, with spurs to Etigere and Isong Inyang, covering a distance of 10.6 kilometres in Abi Local Government Area, Iyamoyong-Iyamitet road in Obubra, which is 14.2 kilometres and Betukwel-Ohong-Bendia, Ibung-Okorshie road in Obudu Local Government Area, covering a distance of 9.5 kilometres.
The Ipollo-Ogba-Ijibolo-Apiapumtet road, stretching from Yala to Obubra Local Gernment Areas is 23 kilometre long. The significance of this road is based on the fact that it provides access to the Yala (Ukelle) and Apiapumtet Communities who hitherto were exposed to incessant harassment by their neighbours and untold hardship because they could only accessed their State through a neighbouring State.
Also completed and commissioned by Senator Liyel Imoke, who has been cleared by INEC to seek a fresh mandate of his people in the February 25th Governorship elections are Ugbro-Ukpah-Afrike road in Bekwarra Local Government Area. The road, indeed, links these communities to the Ogoja-Katsina-Ala highway. The Ndok Junction-Odajie-Idum Mbube with a spur to Obosso in Ogoja Local Government Area, covering a distance of 24.9 kilometres. The Ikot-Oyom Market-Esuk Mba road in Akpabuyo Local Government Area, with a distance of 19.8 kilometres as well as the 16 kilometres’ Awi-Mbarakom-Njagachang-Okoyong road that stretches from Akamkpa Local Government Area, to the Odukpani axis, linking Akwa Ibom State through the Itu-Calabar highway, have also been completed.
The Imoke administration also completed a 6.0 kilometre Ehom-Ekpri Iko road in Biase as well as the Ugep-Idomi-Adim road in Yakurr Local Government Area. Those that have attained different levels of completion are, Ikom-Calabar highway-Balep-Opu Bendeghe Afi Akparabong in Ikom, 45% , Offat-Ababene-Odreregha-Ikom Calabar Highway in Obubra, 45%, Ogboja-Okende-Ibil-Bansara in Ogoja, 48%, Okundi-Kakwagom-Oku Arop in Boki, 68%, Okuku-Ochumoga-Aliforkpa in Yala, 45%, Wula Bukalum-Bamba in Boki, 78%.
Ugboro-Ijibor inland-Imaje-Okuku in Bekwarra is at 55% level, Utuhu-Bishiri South, in Obanliku is 55%, Utugwang-Okorogung-Mbube, Obudu, 40%, Abini-Awagune in Biase, 63%, Agbokim-Karaboot-Ekugatai, in Etung, 85%, Bendeghe Ekiem-Abia-Agbokim Junction, also in Etung, 75%, while Ikot Okpora-Ukwa road in Biase is at 56% level of completion. The Ifiang Nsung-Esighi-Idua Ayong road in Bakassi with A 120 metre span bridge, is at 88% level of completion.
Utang writes from Calabar.
