At a media parley with media men in Calabar yesterday, the governor for the first time, offered clarifications and commented on the ownership of the contentious Garment Factory, at the centre of several petitions fingering his brother, Frank Ayade, as the major financial beneficiary of the project. The governor came clear that the garment factory belongs to Cross River State and no other, in a move seen by many as his attempt to placate Cross Riverians, long angered by his brother’s overbearing presence in critical decision making in the state.
Ayade was also quick to court the media’s friendship, stating clearly that he believes in partnering the media in the accurate dissemination of information, a far cry from his former inaccessible posture. Sources in Government House insist that the parley was strategically planned to take the sails a little away from the celebrated arrest of his brother. “The governor has seen the signs that if he doesn’t settle down to do his work, the people will hunt him to the end, I can assure you that what just happened to Frank is a frank indication that hunger has made us bold and able to speak the truth. You can now see that at the parley, he also had to inform us of his administration’s commitment to power generation and the fact that by December or so, Calabar will have 24 hours light, this is a polite soft landing plea”, a source said.
His often abrasive media team, www.calitown.com was also informed, has been instructed to desist from aimlessly attacking percieved opponents of the Ayade administration, a situation that seems to have won the governor more antagonists. To that effect, the team’s ‘attack posture’ on social media platforms has been toned down completely. The team now propagates syndicated government news items instead of the near fictitious offerings in the immediate past.
Oku Ita, a retired civil servant when confronted with the governor’s open acceptance that the last couple of months have been a learning period, he responded thus, “…now that he has finished learning, you people should tell him to decently prune down the number of vehicles in his convoy, turn down the siren and go work out how to pay us our gratuities and pensions…is that asking for too much?”
