Tag: Cross River
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NUT suspends strike in Cross River
The Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) in Cross River on Tuesday suspended the three days old strike by its members and urged them to resume work immediately.
The NUT Chairman, Mr Njom Nyambi, announced the suspension of the strike at a meeting of the union in Calabar, saying teachers should resume work to create way for the smooth running of the school system.
He said the strike was called off to give room for negotiation with the government on the implementation of 27.5 per cent Teachers Peculiar Allowance.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Offiong Offiong, also directed all principals, head teachers, teachers, students and pupils to return to school.
Offiong urged principals and teachers to take into consideration the three days lost to the strike with a view to making up for the lost time.
“Classes should resume immediately so that the syllabus will be effectively covered in preparation for the forthcoming internal and external examinations, “ he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the teachers embarked on strike over government’s failure to pay the allowance.
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Windstorm sacks Bakassi returnees from refugee camp
No fewer than 2,000 people have further been displaced by a windstorm, which ravaged a school block serving as refugee camp for Bakassi returnees in Cross River.
The building, located in St Mark’s Primary School, Akwa Ikot Eyo Edem in Akpabuyo Local Government Area of Cross River, was used as a temporary camp since March 7 by the returnees.
The Assistant Director (Information), Cross River State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Mr. David Akate, said the storm blew off a four-classroom block and exposed the more than 2,000 returnees to inclement weather.
Akate said: “The rains that accompanied the storm aggravated their problems as the returnees, including women and children were inundated.
“Mattresses, sleeping mats, clothes and other personal belonging were soaked making life unbearable for the people.
“Also pathetic was the destruction of foodstuffs such as garri, rice, beans, salt and other perishable items, subjecting the returnees to an unprecedented trauma.”
The Camp Coordinator, Mr. Okon Ene described the situation as pathetic.
“We had to gather the children and women to some safer places, while the men had to work throughout the night trying to salvage their property,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the camp coordinator as saying on the development.
Assessing the damage, the Director-General, SEMA, Mr. Vincent Aquah, said efforts were being made to relocate the returnees to a safer place.
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CROSS RIVER STATE TO HOST AFRICA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
AFRIFF 2013 GOES TO TINAPA
Organisers of Africa International Film Festival (AFRIFF) have announced that the third edition of the event will hold from November 10th to 17th, 2013 at the popular TINAPA resort in Calabar, the Cross River state capital.
Founder and Project Director, Chioma Ude noted that the synergy created by experiencing the festival in Calabar will be something to cherish for a lifetime. She said it will be the ultimate experience for all participants from home and abroad.
The unveiling of this year’s edition which held at the Rhapsody Lounge, Victoria Island, Lagos, was attended by His Excellency, Senator Liyel Imoke, Governor of Cross River State and his wife, Mrs Obioma Imoke. Also at the event was the Special Adviser to the President on Strategy and Documentation, Mr Oronto Douglas and the cream of the Nigerian Film Industry including several Nollywood guild heads and notable stars.
Governor Imoke expressed pleasure at the union between his State and AFRIFF saying, “The Africa International Film Festival is a natural inclusion in the colorful yearlong calendar of world class activities held in Cross River State.” Attesting to this development, Mr Oronto Douglas said that the Federal Government would support the State Government efforts at promoting this film festival and other film festivals, and taking them to greater heights.
Chioma Ude expressed gratitude to the government and people of Cross River State for believing in her vision and partnering with the festival to deliver an exceptional experience in their state. She explained that AFRIFF was a platform that seeks to give expression to players in the African film industry by recognizing and rewarding excellence in the sector.
Conceived by Ude three years ago, AFRIFF presents a complete immersion into the world of film making with participation from local and international, actors, directors, scriptwriters, cinematographers, sound engineers, musicians, editors, light engineers, students, equipment manufacturers and businessmen. The objectives are to develop the film industry to a level where the products compete favorably with their contemporaries all over world; provide a growth opportunity for these film industry professionals to eventually export their products to the world; facilitate access to investors, equipment, technical and skill acquisition through Festival organized fora and several capacity development workshops; complement government’s efforts at revamping small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs).
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Anambra, Cross River best in EU 9th EDF
Governor Liyel Imoke has disclosed that Cross River and Anambra States were committed to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015, even if Nigeria failed to do so.
He spoke yesterday at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between six participating states for 10 European Union Development Fund with the Ministry National Planning at the Minister’s Conference Room. Imoke’s position was informed by the fact that Anambra and Cross Rivers States were recently adjudged the best in the EU’s 9th EDF, which ended on June 11th, 2012.
A total of 120 million Euro was spent under the 9th EDF. While the EU provided 94 million, the participating states provided 26 million.
Speaking shortly before the signing, the Minister of National Planning, Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman said that the approval of the 10th EDF was because of outstanding performances of states involved in 9th EDF. He called on them to redouble their efforts to make the 10th EDF better and more beneficial to the people.
Responding on behalf of the governors, the Governor of Cross River State, Senator Liyel Imoke said the partnership with the EU had brought about veritable results to the communities were various projects from the fund were utilised. He thanked the EU and the Planning Ministry and assured that the participating states would live up to expectations.
Also speaking, the governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi said that when he attended functions such as the signing ceremonies, they inspired him to believe that Anambra would in due time overcome all its difficulties, which have been substantially reduced under his government. “When I became governor of Anambra State, no development partner was working or carrying out any project in the state, but today, due to the return of sanity, all of them are working with us and as far as I am concerned, this is very good for the state and we will continue to build on that.”
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Cross River gives teachers laptops
NOT less than 10,000 computers have been presented to teachers in Cross River State under the Teachers’ Laptop Computer Distribution in the E-learning and Digital Literacy Programme.
The Acting Governor, Mr. Efiok Cobham, said the gesture was borne out of its desire to belong to the League of Nations that have done it right in education revolution and transformation.
He said education takes a big chunk of the budget because of the high premium the state places on it.
He recalled the many strides the state has taken in the education sector.
According to him: “armed with resolution, we plunged into comprehensive renovation of schools where the 60 secondary schools in Phase 1 were renovated and brought to a standard where conducive environment can actually be said to have created for teaching and learning to take place.”
He explained all the schools have been equipped with laboratories for Physics, Biology, Chemistry and Computer Science.
The processes for the award of contract for the second phase comprising additional 41 schools, Cobham added, have commenced.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof Offiong E. Offiong, said the laptops are meant to facilitate the teachers’ acquisition of ICT skills for their benefit and that of the school system.
He remarked that all the schools have been grouped into 48 clusters for the purpose of distributing the laptops across the state.
Training on the use of the laptops, he hinted, will commence in the next two weeks and run in phases.
The Project Management Officer (PMO) of the T-CAP Project, Mr. Chinenye Mba Uzoukwu, disclosed each of the laptops has a variety of over 300 subjects to enable the teachers do better jobs.
He stated they are also internet-ready and installed with anti-virus.
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Cross River agency speeds up community growth
Things are looking up in rural parts of Cross River State, thanks to its Community, Social Development Agency (CRSCSDA).
New roads are being built. Water is running where it never did. Facilities are springing up in neighbourhoods. The people are smiling.
CRSCSDA was established in March, 2009 to implement community and social development projects in the state.
In partnership with the World Bank, the federal and state governments, it speeds up development in rural communities by implementing and monitoring micro-social infrastructural projects, including natural resource management interventions.
According to General Manager of the agency, Mr. Victor Ovat, they use a bottom-up approach to development. Under this approach, the beneficiaries at the community level champion the course of development. The communities identify what their topmost priorities are, design them and contribute at least 10 per cent of the total cost of the project. The agency then provides technical support and funding, paying up to 90 per cent of the entire cost of the projects.
Ovat told Newsextra that so far, N706m has been spent on community projects since the agency was established in 2009.
He said the funds have so far been disbursed to 112 communities and 251 projects have been completed and put to use.
Ovat further said the agreement with the World Bank is that the state government would provide N100m annually to the projects, even as he added that since 2009, the state government complied and even increased its financial contribution to N200m in 2012.
“Beyond that, the governor has amended the law backing the agency to the effect that we now receive monthly funding from the state and local government accounts.
“For the first half of the year, we received N126m. So, what we have now is that we are receiving funding beyond what the state and federal governments and World Bank agreed on the projects and that has made our state to be in the lead in terms of support to community development. That would also help us to be in the lead in terms of our support to communities,” Ovat told Newsextra.
He said the project, which is designed for five years, is to close by December, 2013.
But he disclosed that so far, given what the governor has done by providing monthly funding, “it is as good as saying government has taken over the project.”
He said: “We want to take rural development to the next level.”
Vice-Chairman of the State Planning Commission and Economic Adviser to the Governor, Professor Ndem Ayara, who spoke to Newsextra, said: “I can tell you this is one of the most successful World Bank programmes in the state. It started as a poverty reduction programme in the state and transformed to the community and social development agency.
“In every five communities in Cross River State, about three are known to have been touched by this agency. The agency is known for high rate of delivery of projects. That is not common among other programmes. But they seem to understand the local condition and characteristics of our communities; and they really know how to manage the people of the community and the resources available to them.
“You can see a project that Cross River State decided to support with 0.5 per cent of local government and 0.5 of state government to add to what the World Bank is putting in. The government would not do that if they are not seeing positive impact of the programme. So, it is a known success case of a partner project that is delivering in cross River State and they are really touching lives at the grassroots.
“The support of Cross River State government now is higher than what is coming from World Bank. That means we have taken ownership and we have accepted that this is one way of touching lives of people in the rural areas. You know this government is very passionate about rural development.”
Mr. Osakwe Obi, the Senior Project Accountant of the project in Abuja, speaking during a training workshop for the Community Project Management Committees, made up of community members expected to drive the project, said so far as the project is concerned, Cross River State was leading in the country.
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Cross River: Making of a destination
The tempo for this year’s December festival in Calabar is gradually increasing. It will be officially flagged off on November 31.
Unlike in the past, Cross River State is marketing the whole state as a destination rather than the seasonal festival.
Here, we look at endowments that make Cross River State a destinationCross River State has become a vast leisure getaway. It has built a reputation for its self as a place where for 32 days, there is festivity and visitors are pampered in the only way peculiar to the people. The month of November is the eve to this festive month.
However, the state wants more of the local and international tourist share of arrivals. As such, the state is reinventing itself, doing a circumspection of its past tourism offering and re-assessing its efforts and product on offer to both local and international tourists.
The leisure season for the state is about to begin, but now it is not all about Calabar Festival and of course its top product, the Carnival Calabar. It is about Destination Cross River.
In creating Destination Cross River, the state seeks to create a distinct identity for itself as a unique place for pampering and caring for people and making them happy. In this new brand creation, there is a remarkably paradigm shift from what used to obtain in the past. Business tourism was supposed to act as a major launch pad for tourism in the state. That informed the building of the Tinapa, a recreation of Dubai in Africa.
However, The state is not waiting until all the bottlenecks currently stiffling the take-off of Tinapa is sorted out. Rather, it has decided to add content to other tourism sites all over the state. By so doing, Destination Cross River would be an all-year-round tourism experience.
So, one may ask, what is the difference between the new Destination Cross River and what obtained in the past? The difference is that while the Calabar Festival is a seasonal 32-day event with the Carnival Calabar, reputed to be Africa’s biggest street party, being the highpoint, Destination Cross River is building a new image for the state as an all-year-round tourist friendly getaway that caters for both leisure and conference, guests, with an eye for business tourism too.
This new thrust of the state as a total package is predicated on trying to harness and market all the top tourists site within the state, upgrade the facilities from being just sites to a destination with all the supporting facilities that would make them an enjoyable experience.
Destination Cross River is anchored on culture and eco-tourism.
With a diverse ethnic group of over 100 languages and dialects, there is an abundance of colourful culture and tradition.
In Ikom, Leboku festival in Yakurr is distinct. Leboku is a unique new year festival that celebrates fertilityof the land and beauty of womanhood. It is 32 days of celebration that is captured in only a few places in the world. But one must not forget a tour of Ikom area around July and August would not just be about the Leboku alone. There is also the Ikom monolith to explore and the Agbokim waterfall. So, just in Ikom zone alone, it is a full package.
The Leboku comes up around July and August during the harvesting of new yams from the farm. However, the people of Cross River entertain in their celebration of culture. To a great extent, the 32 days celebration is a modernization of the culture of hospitality that is already ingrained in the people of the state.
The Obudu Mountain Resort is probably one of the earliest recognized tourism site in the country. When Cross River State is described as a paradise, there is no place in the state this is more apt than Obudu Mountain Resort. Describing the place as paradise, in the simple sense of the word is not patronizing. One is not surprise that in Cross River folklore, there are some community that swore that the biblical Garden of Eden was located in the state. There might not be any concrete proof of that except that if one is searching for a paradise, there is a sense of Eureka- I have found it, on getting to Obudu Mountain. It is only a blind man that would not be moved by the sight of this idyllic mountain ranch that offers sights and sounds incomparable to anything else in this part of the world.
However, the dominant image of Destination Cross River State brand is the 32-day Festival. This is due to the streams of images from the past editions that have always left everybody excited. This year, according to the state, is no exception.
It is gratifying that Cross River State is positioning itself as the prime and probably the only tourism destination in the country. It did not do this by just trumpeting the phrase, but went out of its way to do the necessary background work that helps in making the state easy to access.
This, the state did in so many ways. Tourism is one of the commonest English words in the state. The people know what it means when local and foreign visitors walk on the streets in the state. Creating the necessary man-power based sector like the hospitality industry through training and education of young men and women to understand the sector well is on. The effort to make the destination accessible to both local and foreign tourists has been done through the initiative of groups like Remlords and the hotels associaition of the state with their pet project- Experience Cross River. It does not require any special knowledge of anything to book a holiday in Cross River State, it is just a click away on the internet.
Of course, one key component of tourism which Destination Cross River is selling is peace of mind. It is probably the only state in the country that one could visit, enjoy the laid-back ambience and without the discomforting consciousness of trying to watch one’s back.
But with all these pluses for tourism in the state, it becomes useless when the roads are deathtraps. It is a challenge that once tackled, will resolve the jigsaw.
Indeed, nature and man connived in Destination Cross River to produce an environment where every body can come, let down their guard, and have a wonderful time. The season is here.
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Cross River decries child abandonment
The discovery of a dead baby abandoned by an unknown person behind the Medical Students Hostel on Moore Road, Calabar, near the Office of the Wife of Cross River State Governor, has drawn the ire of the state government.
Speaking to the journalists at the scene, the Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Health, NGO and Special Projects, Dr. Regina Ejemot-Nwadiaro said her attention was drawn to the incident by an anonymous caller and when she got to the scene and confirmed the story, she immediately called the Calabar Urban Development Authority (CUDA) who quickly responded to the call and subsequently alerted the Police.
She condemned perpetrators of the act which she described as callous, inhuman and outright wicked.
She intimated that for the past five years, the wife of the State Governor Mrs. Obioma Liyel-Imoke, has being championing the stamping out of teenage pregnancy child abandonment in the state through her project; Mothers’ Against Child Abandonment (MACA). “It is thus, disheartening that in spite of the consistent efforts by Mrs. Obioma Liyel-Imoke and the MACA team, people could still dump babies” she wondered.
The Dr. Ejemot-Nwadiaro stated that the main goal of MACA is to prevent teenage pregnancy and child abandonment and ultimately to save lives. She called on the public to avail themselves of the services MACA provides and reiterated that MACA’s ultimate goal is to contribute to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals especially as it concerns Child and Maternal Mortality. She stated that Mrs. Liyel Imoke also initiated the Calabar Carnival Queen (CCQ), as the face of MACA who goes on advocacy and sensitisation visits to secondary schools the state, preaching abstinence from pre-marital sex and building their confidence. MACA has also trained counselors and operates a 24-hour helpline service on 08131062847 for people who provide information or need assistance.
The Executive Secretary of CUDA Gabriel Egari on getting to the scene, confirmed the incident and promised to report it to the police as well as get clearance before his office could evacuate and bury the dead baby.
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Cross River urged to connect renovated schools to national grid
The Cross River State government has been called upon to connect all newly renovated secondary schools spread across the 18 local government areas to the national electricity grid to enable the schools utilise the newly equipped science laboratories and computer science centres.
A community leader and Principal of Community Secondary School, Akpet Central in Biase Local Government Area, Elder Emmanuel Eko who stated this during a crucial meeting with parents and elders of the community held at Akpet Central, also charged the community members to see what government has provided in the school as their own and, therefore, protect the facilities jealously against vandalism and theft.
Elder Eko lauded Governor Liyel Imoke for the pragmatic changes in the educational sector of the state, saying that the comprehensive renovation of schools was the best project in the sector so far in a long while.
He urged contractors handling ongoing installations of science laboratory equipment to do so swiftly in order for government to realise the objective of the entire project.
The Principal pointed out that the national electricity grid will make alternative power available at all times for Teachers and Students to undergo practical training in core science subjects to prepare them for a brighter future.
Eko also commended the Commissioner for Education, Prof. Offiong E. Offiong for midwifing the transformation in the sector, adding that the on-going sinking of borehole in the school will provide safe-drinking water for the students and people around the vicinity.
In a remark, the PTA Chairman of the school, Deacon Egbai Ojah Egbai assured of the readiness of the parents to partner the school authority in making the school remain Clean and Green as well as provide security coverage for the school property. Deacon Egbai sued for the inclusion of the School’s Staff Quarters on the renovation list in order to make the work complete.
The Clan Head and Atte Obhort of Akpet Community, Obhort Sunday Evong, pledged on behalf of the traditional Institution in the Community to co-operate with the Government in protecting the equipment in the school for the overall benefits of their children.