The Civic Duties Awareness Initiative (CIDAI), has condemned the Cross River State government over the purchase of a N13 billion ‘dead’ aircraft from the Rivers State government.
?CIDAI’s executive director, Mr. Emmanuel Ulayi, also accused the governor of and insensitivity in the face of dire poverty and massive suffering of Cross Riverians, especially following heavy flooding in some parts of the state.
?Ulayi bemoaned the wasting of over N13billion in buying a ‘Tokunbo’, scrappy aircraft from the Rivers State government when social services was ground to a halt with rising unemployment.
? Gov. Rotimi Amaechi had in an interview Tuesday, disclosed that he had sold one of his three aircraft to Imoke for N13billion and was using the money to build a minimum of 10 primary schools in his state.
? According to the statement, at a time other state governors were thinking of how to empower their people economically and educationally, Imoke was more concerned with his personal comfort and that of his family.
He also expressed fears that with the revelation by Amaechi that the smallness of the plane was dangerous to fly in given climatic factors, “it would not be out of place to state that
Gov. Imoke was on a mission of group suicide and place unnecessary burden on the state’s finances.”
?The executive director further lamented that the Imoke government is the only state to abandon its citizens to their fate in Borno with many of them losing all their sources of livelihood and turned into beggers in Abuja with no tangible assistance from the state government.
?He added that the plight of the Borno escapees was further worsened by the fact that the state liaison office-operational.
? Speaking further, Ulayi criticised the governor for not making strong argument for more ministerial slots for the state despite the fact that Cross River state was the first state to support President Goodluck Jonathan.