Following the recent EIA approvals by the Federal Ministry of Environment for the Cross River State signature project, the Superhighway and the Bakassi deep seaport, over 71 companies are bidding to handle the projects.
Governor Ben Ayade, disclosed this shortly on his arrival from Abuja, at the Margaret Ekpo International Airport, Calabar.
His words, “the superhighway and deep seaport projects are in good progress. Only yesterday, there was a major opening of the bid and about 71 different companies bided. We are using this opportunity to call on EFCC, ICPC, NGOs and other organizations to please come and watch the bid evaluation process which will take about 10 days.”
Governor Ayade maintained that, the essence of inviting the anti-graft agencies was “to demonstrate the transparency in the process of arriving at a preferred bidder commencing works under our proposed deep seaport and superhighway.”
The Governor further added, “it is critical that we show transparency because we have very massive bids and very big international companies will be participating in the bids.”
On the funding of the projects, Ayade intimated, “as we speak, nobody or organization so far has put a dime on the project except those that have put direct technical services. We have no cash anywhere but we have the idea, intellect, knowledge and we know where to go and the investors that have the appetite for infrastructure in sub Saharan Africa with emphasis on the gulf of Guinea.”
Reasoning that Cross River will not compromise international best practices in the execution of the projects, Ayade said, “We will stay strictly with the regulations, provisions and tenets of the law, so that we will have a very bumper harvest,” pointing out that “as I put my hand on this and God with us, we shall overcome.”
The governor also hinted that “a team from China will be in the state for some months, going from one local government area to another in order to do solid mineral mapping of Cross River, tell us in each local government what mineral economic value we have in deposit and giving us the coordinates.”
On the recent peace in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the country after the Supreme Court ruling, Ayade said, it was  a healthy development for the people of Nigeria and indeed Africa.
“Nigeria is the leading light and our democracy must also demonstrate that we are the leading light in all aspects. I think that PDP has a great opportunity to put our house together and work as a team and a solid party,” the governor stressed.
Continuing, Ayade prayed for President Buhari to return healthy and continue his good works, while  appreciating the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, for holding strong for the President to come back.
He applauded former President Good luck Jonathan “for demonstrating maturity, education, finesse and proper conduct by ceding power.”

From Friday Nwagbara, Calabar