By Dan Amor
Senator Liyel Imoke, the immediate past Governor of Cross River State is quiet, self – effacing, media-shy but dynamic. He is so gentle and unassuming that he could easily be classified as a man who cannot hurt a fly. This quiet and simple disposition as a man not given to the loudness and pomposity of the average Nigerian politician has become a defining factor in his political career. For those very close to him, Imoke believes that it is not important for one to advertise oneself. This belief, perhaps, may have been responsible for the lack of publicity of his towering achievements as governor of Cross River State in the popular Press.
Imoke’s humanism favoured an assertion of the dignity of man against the asceticism of medieval misanthropy as he took governance to the rural dwellers, who needed it most while still developing the urban centres. Given Imoke’s legendary love for his people and his capacity to hold even his political adversaries in thrall, few can behold even this quiet ex-governor and not feel a sense of shame or inadequacy. His basket–baller frame aside, Imoke exudes a sure–footedness or confidence that wows. But it is his brilliance that endears many to him.
But, again, it is his vision and determination to provide comfort for his people, especially those who had never felt government presence before that is the thrust of his political philosophy. It takes an astute politician with a consuming love for his people to see the faceless antagonism of fifth columnists as a challenge and thus employ his manifest gusto to canalize all dangerous proclivities into harmless channels. The sense of energy and optimism generated by Imoke’s bold attempt to create a brave new model state could have easily given way to disillusionment if his government did not turn visionary rhetoric into something rather more substantial.
Of course, Imoke’s mastery of political mood-music is not to be sniffed at. But he does not blow his trumpet and would not want anyone to blow it for him. That, probably, accounts for why his state appeared grossly under-reported during his tenure. To be candid, Senator Imoke did not have a bad press; yet it was only those who visited Cross River State when he was in the saddle that can testify to how he was silently transforming that agrarian state to one of the first eleven among Nigeria’s 36 states. After the sense of drift that was the lot of the people in the past, it was now a refreshing change under Imoke.
The administration of Senator Imoke inspired widespread confidence. Like Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State or Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, to mention just a few, Imoke had managed simultaneously to accept much of the legacy of his predecessor while creating public excitement about the idea of real change. He was attacking excruciating poverty and underdevelopment head on.
While it is impossible to articulate the cumulative magnitude of Imoke’s developmental strides in one piece, this one may actually be a convenient factual aid to the bare construing of Imoke’s staggering achievements in Cross River State between 2007 and 2015 when he occupied the hot seat as executive governor.
Besides asphalting a network of more than 1000 kilometre well developed closely knit roads across the state, his government indeed gave a face-lift to education. To accentuate his priority on education, not only did he build and renovate several schools across the state, he re-introduced scholarship awards for indigenes to study at home and abroad. An attempt to encode some of these projects would definitely not leave the inimitable ones among the lot. Urban and Rural Roads, Goodluck Jonathan Bye-pass, Urban and Rural Water Scheme, first flyover in Calabar, the Mono-Rail Project, Tinapa Knowledge City, Smartgov and Electronic Citizen Identification Scheme easily come to mind. His government constructed the first ever underground drainage in Calabar thus making the city free from the menace of incessant flooding.
In terms of security, the state had zero-tolerance for cultism and with the establishment of the Emergency Response Centre, the state was the most peaceful in the country. This made it to be the first choice when it comes to hosting important national events like Presidential Retreat, Bankers Committee meetings, etc, which were annual routines. Whereas Imoke attracted some big multinational companies like General Electric of the United States and Weilmer, arguably the biggest oil palm producing company in the world, local ones like Flour Mills, Unicem, etcetera, were expanded. His government set up the Elders Committee made up of traditional rulers, community leaders and leaders of thought which managed communal clashes to forestall violence.
Other projects include: International Convention Centre which was cited by CNN as one of the three monumental architectural designs in Africa, International Golf Course, Model Schools, Port-side Industrial Park, the first civil servants housing estate, Mother & Child Free Healthcare Programme (including health centres covering all the wards in the state), GIS and land Registration Reform, etcetera. Aside from the admirable cordiality between government and organized Labour in the state despite meager financial inflow having ceded its 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State by the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation and Fiscal Commission, Imoke’s capacity for prudent husbandry of resources remains a mystery. No wonder, the National Budget Transparency Monitoring Group recently declared Cross River State under Imoke as the best State in Nigeria in terms of budget transparency.
Yet, this miracle cannot be divorced from the ex-Governor’s strategic templates which included a creative facilitation of the flow of private investor money into the State’s unproductive assets to make them operational thereby lifting the state’s tourism economy. Aside from winning the best ICT compliant state, Calabar remains till date the only city in Nigeria with digital underground complete with fibrotic network.
Not only was the state the number one tourism destination in the country, it blended it with sport. The state won the national secondary schools championship. Imoke built the Ikom Township Stadium as part of his drive to promote sporting activities as a means of curbing youth restiveness.
Amor writes from Abuja.