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Judex Okoro, Calabar
The Cross River Governor, Professor Ben Ayade, jas said the job festival initiative of recruiting 8000 youths is driven by compassion for the poor.
The governor, who made this known
while inaugurating the programme for the Southern Senatorial zone at the Ayade Industrial Park in Calabar on Tuesday, said rather than giving food palliatives to young men in the state, his administration decided to change the system by giving palliatives only to the elderly and jobs to young men to help cushion the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to this, it is high time we changed the system by engaging the energy of our young men as the state
cannot continue to put food on people’s tables as we can only do it for a while.
He said: “If I bring you food today, tomorrow, you will become a beggar, you loose your integrity and cannot work with your own strength, you have lost your humanity, value, and lost what make you a human being and so I don’t want to turn my people to beggars who will depend on gifts.
“We don’t have enough but we care enough. We have to show compassion and care. Everyone has to get a job and there are different categories of jobs. I have no election to run personally.
“The mass recruitment will also be engaged at the 31 factories being put up by the state. We need to get these youths out of the streets and let them be to survive because that is the essence of government.
“The job festival is also about the welfare of the people of Cross River state which is in line with the country’s constitution which stipulates that the welfare and security of the people shall be the primary responsibility of government,” Prof Ayade stated.
Also speaking, the coordinator of the State’s Green Money initiative, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo, said the jobs are part of the initiatives of the government to expand the agricultural base of the state.
According to her, “this government is not just about jobs but agriculture. As much as we try to deal with the virus itself and keep it away from the state, we also have to deal with the food that we need which means that the governor has already thought ahead of this and decided to initiate the green money.
“As a matter of fact, as the value of oil has gone down very badly we are going to depend on economies around agriculture and Cross River state can feed almost half of the country
“Therefore this virus is creating an opportunity between it and agriculture and the jobs you are given. The job is about agriculture, food security, making money out of food. Therefore, we are here as green money to ensure that the connection between these jobs and agriculture is well established”, she said.
On her part, Dr. Betta Edu, the commissioner for health and chairman of state’s COVID-9 response team, Dr. Betta Edu,said the job festival is a unique avenue to get our youths engaged, put food on their table and get them to be productive.
