Ayade’s 260km Superhighway is a failure in good governance —environment expert

The 260km dual capacity double lane highway, stretching from Bakassi in southern Cross River state to Obudu in northern Cross River, one of the pet project of His Excellency the Executive Governor of Cross River State, Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade, Monday, was deemed a failure in good governance by Mr Tony Atah, an environment consultant NegroidHaven can report authoritatively. 

Consultant Atah made this known yesterday while addressing a cross section of members of the mainstream media based in Calabar, Cross River capital city in a sensitisation workshop organised by Peace Point Action (PPA), an NGO given to community development, environment and human resource development issues. The event which took place at Keves Hotel between 9AM and 4PM and themed, 'Forest, Community Concerns & the Superhighway' saw different facilitators/speakers like Mr Edem Edem of GreenCode, Mr Odey Oyama of RRDC appraising variant dimensions of the dead-on-arrival pet project of the pro-industry governor, Ayade. 

Atah observed that weighing the idea of the Superhighway against the basic principles of good governance reveals that it falls short of best practices. He itemised some features of this governance principle which the initiative could not approximate to, to be, consensus oriented, participatory, respect for the rule of law, effective and efficient, accountability and transparency. Atah also added that the said pet project was not a development issue. 

According to the environmental expert, 'the superhighway was not a product of consensus, the decision making process that saw to its initiation on the first place wasn't participatory, it did not respect the rule of law particularly in the aspect of having a sound EIA, broad-based consultation with stakeholders, there is no accountability as it borders on how much timber has been felled, urges revenue incurred for government, there is no transparency… 

'The superhighway has weakened(rather than strengthened) the supply of governance. It has oppressed (rather than strengthened the demand for governance. My submission is that the superhighway is not a development issue at all. It has failed every criteria of development. The superhighway requires further dialogue. It has to do with governance issues requiring further dialogue.' he concluded. 

By governance, Atah meant that the Superhighway was not a product of evidence-based policy making. He further informed that the accountability mechanism being a component of governance via which duties and expectations are anticipated from government by the public was grossly lacking —a phenomenon which further strengthened the perception that it was a failure in good governance. 

Mr Edem who presented on 'The Superhighway: the Journey so far', submitted that, the superhighway will not bring any meaningful development to Cross River State. For him, public officials will only succeed in 'assigning the converted lands to themselves and foreign companies after the logging of trees within 20km of the land.'

During the course of the workshop, it was gleaned that while the media had commendably given sufficient reportage on the subject of the Superhighway, there was less of advocacy, that is, dialogue-based consultation on facts as well as other forms of dialogue, laced with more of activism, confrontation and propaganda. The media was encouraged to engage in more investigative journalism to uncover the salient nuances of the project. 

Mr Oyama of Rainforest Resource & Development Centre informed that he will be suing the state government in respect of compensation schedule which the government has refused to supply information on. 

The Superhighway is one of the pet project of His Excellency Governor Ayade including the Bakassi Deep Seaport. Those projects are already dead-on-arrival.