Ayade Warns: C/River Will Leave Nigeria When We Leapfrog From Third To First World

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State, Wednesday, has vowed that the state will leave the rest of Nigeria behind as it leapfrogs from third world to first world.

The governor spoke at the state executive chambers, Governor’s office, Calabar, when he received a Taiwanese delegation, which is in the state to seek areas of collaboration.

According to, “we are open, we are ready to engage with you, we are ready to support you and to work with you to develop our industrial park.

“For the first time, Cross River has decided to isolate herself from the country as a sub national to see how it can frog leap  from a third world to a first world.”

While commending Taiwan for having a foreign reserve of about 500 billion USD with a relatively small population of approximately 23 million people, Ayade  described it as a model the state wants to copy from.

His words: “It is a model that has excited me, my team and the state that we made a choice of Taiwan to visit amongst other countries to see the possibility of collaboration.”

The governor noted that Cross River has strong focus on industrial revolution similar to what Taiwan undertook years ago.

“No matter how your population is, if you don’t industrialise or develop a business attitude, if you don’t open up to the world, if you are sensitive to political barriers, you can never grow,” Ayade said.

He expressed optimism that the business relationship between the state and Taiwan “will be huge, our mutual benefits strong and the synergy can create opportunity for Cross River to finally escape from the level of poverty.”

Disclosing the business links already existing between Cross River and the Taiwanese especially on the Rice seeds and seedlings factory as well as the toothpick factory amongst others in the state, the governor said, “we have started trading with Taiwan, we have started trading with the Taiwan Africa business association and because we have done so, it is your turn to also keep your own side of the bargain by investing.”

 Earlier, leader of the visiting team and chairman, Taiwan Africa Business Association, Jeff Sun, remarked that the visit was in line with understanding reached when Governor Ayade and his team came to Taiwan to strengthen the ties.

 Sun who reeled out the business strength of his country, pointed out that, “Taiwan is a business country, we survive because of business and foreign sales, we are the number four country in the world with high foreign reserve and no foreign debt and we can boast of 500billion Dollars worth of foreign reserves.”

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