Cross River Governor, Ben Ayade, Wednesday in Calabar explained why
he spent almost a month touring three countries and cited health reasons
for his delayed arrival from Abuja.
Ayade who spoke with journalists shortly after his arrival at the
Margaret Ekpo International Airport described his visit to Asia as
“Imperative” owing to the policy direction of the federal government in
diversifying the economy.
“President Buhari has tried to move the state and indeed the nation
to focus more on agriculture and rice is one of the crops chosen. The
choice of investing in rice requires us to have the full understanding
of the rice technology.
“We are in a digital race and I don’t intend us to grow rice in the
local manner. Unfortunately, because agriculture is now technologically
intensive and less manual, it became imperative for me to learn the
trend and because Thailand is the major exporter of rice across the
globe, it became more imperative for me to understudy Thailand and that
is why I took my time to be in a rice farm, understudy every aspect of
rice production.
“As a teacher, as a professor, it is imperative I learn what I want
to practice, there is no shame in learning and that is why I put on my
jeans and my Tee Shirts in a village setting and then travelled up to
Taiwan and spend another week there. And the experience I have put
together up from Thailand and Taiwan allows me to drive the rice
business and project in Africa” Ayade said.
He further added that in no distant time, Cross River will lead the
way in modern methods of rice farming in Africa, pointing out that “I
was down in health upon arrival because I left Toronto (in Canada) all
the way to Asia to do all these”.
Explaining why his administration is bringing in the Canadian model
into the state education system, Ayade said the use of UBEC funds for
political patronage of politicians has only led to renovation of
classrooms and that is not adding real value to the education system.
He argued that real value can only be added through the introduction
of vocational training, skills learning and training of teachers.
Implementing this, he said a two pronged approach has been adopted
which is the setting up of a Canadian vocational school and school for
building and construction.
Also, he lamented a situation where Africans believed foreigners could develop their land and tasked all to look inwards.
He said Africa had contributed only a percentage in the world of
patent and innovation in the past two decades despite the number of
professors, researchers and academics.
“When I speak, I don’t speak Nigeria, I speak Africa because indeed, Nigeria represents Africa” he said.
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