The Finger of Liyel Imoke.

By Adeola Akinremi.

We are now out of the view of Margaret Ekpo International Airport.  As I gaze at the neat roads separated by the well-manicured median strip, I realize that this place is the opposite of other cities I have been to in the country. It has ample room for residents to stroll the streets, play and cruise its tranquil zone without that fear of the unknown, common with most cosmopolitan cities. Welcome to Calabar, the city of attraction.

Oh yes! Calabar is a beautiful city, both in the day and night. It is a city bristling with possibilities. But the joys of Cross River go beyond Calabar. You’ve been to Shanghai and Seoul? No! You’ve only read about them and you’re excited. That’s how it feels in Cross River State nowadays. The joys of Cross River are on the street level, where everyday life unfolds with confidence of a secured future. 

I’m being chauffeured through the length and breadth of this state that prides itself in that sweet title as the ‘nation’s paradise’ and there is nothing short of that, really. I can see it through the eyes of its inhabitants. Many geographical places across the world have titles, or alternative names, which have positive implications. Paris, for example, is the "City of Light", Venice is "La Serenissima", and New Jersey is the "Garden State". Truly, Cross River is a paradise, where the government and the governed bond like a mother and her new born baby.

I am at the Summit Hills and the transformation of this area once known for its gully erosion speaks volume of how the mind of the state governor, Liyel Imoke works. Just a little over four months ago, I was here and my visit coincided with the time that the former central bank governor, Lamido Sanusi Lamido visited the place during one of the bankers’ summit held in Calabar.  I can say without ambiguity that the place at that time could be described as ground zero, literarily. But now a gigantic convention centre that has a semblance of what I have seen elsewhere, the CCIG in Geneva, Switzerland, to be precise, is growing from the soil of this state called paradise of Nigeria, and so rapidly.

The Summit Hills according to the project Manager, Richard Longdon, is an innovative, mixed-used lifestyle development that combines convention, recreation, arts, culture, housing and healthcare facilities all within an exclusive and idyllic location bounding the Tinapa Business Resort and Calabar Free Trade Zone.

The passion with which Longdon speaks about the project simply points me in one direction and that is Shanghai and Seoul, the two Asian cities that have moved from the third-world poverty classification to become model cities.

Like Shanghai and Seoul, Cross River State is making a steady transformation from a state that receives paltry allocation from the federal government as a state at the bottom of the federal allocation list to a front row state capable of generating internal revenue to break the vicious cycle of poverty that characterised its growth from the time, when it was created in 1976. No doubt, Cross River State is moving from its economic backwater to that front row position as a model state in Nigeria.

I am now at Ugep in Yarkurr Local Government Area of Cross River State and Wilmer farm is of interest to me, so I am spending a few moments to explore this self-contained city I have now christened ‘Malaygeria.’ Remember that story about town, of how Palm oil seedlings taken from Nigeria to Malaysia at independence turned around the fortune of that country to the extent that we now import palm oil from Malaysia for our Industrial use?

Be cheerful! That seed is back in Ugep in Cross River State. Thanks to Liyel Imoke’s foresight. “It performed very well where we are coming from and we hope it will do well here too,” says a man who heads the Wilmer Farm, a fortune 500 company now farming on 5,500 hectares of land in Cross River State.

For Wilmer Farm owners, a good policy environment in Cross River State more than anything else has ensured the level of progress made so far on the farm. So by 2016, palm oil from this nation’s paradise will start reaching the world and that will help contribute to moving Nigeria from a consumer economy to a producer economy, which is the desire of citizens of every nation.
I am leaving Ugep behind me and I am now looking at the plantations and everything else inside Songhai Farm at Itigidi. There is just one conclusion; Cross Riverian has got something to cheer about, especially when many states are still at the strategy stage in their agricultural plan.

Beyond this is the story of super infrastructure everywhere in the state, ranging from the Margaret Ekpo International Airport bypass in Calabar (a super highway that is expected to divert traffic from the city centre) to the housing estates springing up everywhere and many rural access roads on which the four tyes of my vehicle is making smooth movement, to the huge investment in education in the state such as the new college of technology and management in Akamkpa and the revival of  its scrapped college of education.

So anticipated booming export-oriented economy coupled with extreme wealth creation, massive growth and expanded cultural power, means that Cross River isn’t just a phenomenon in its own right; it’s also a model for other states in Nigeria trying to look outside the oil economy and the federal allocation for their own transformation.
If rapid and radical changes in Cross River are any indication, its residents will make something distinctive, living out of the new opportunity this state is offering them.

Of all these, what impresses me most about Cross River State Government is the value added chain side of the partnership or the investment coming to the state. For instance, the companies have a standing order to establish processing mills and refineries in the state. And in the case of Wilmer Farm, it is required that the farm owners share the palm oil seedlings with the locals at no cost. That suggests one thing. As Wilmer Farm concentrates on producing for the export market, the local farmers without the muscle to compete in the export market will take control of the local market with the same produce and in terms of its quality. Either way, Cross Riverians win!

My Cabby, Kingley is now saying goodbye to end my five days of sojourn in this paradise. “I can tell you this man called Imoke has given a good account of himself and he deserves all the accolades,” he says.  I agree. That is true. In this paradise I see the finger of God. Nay! This is the finger of Liyel Imoke.