By Inyali Peter, Calabar
Civil Society National Lectures And Awards (CISNALA), a coalition of over 50 Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria have named Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade as 2016 man of the year.
This is coming barely few weeks after Vanguard, Business Hallmark and the Authority newspapers all named Ayade as the best governor in 2016.
In a statement issued on behalf of CISNALA, by the convener, Comrade Innocent Ebirim Okadigbo, Convener of CISNALA and Malam Umar Farouk, Convener, Transparency Centre Network, the group said the exercise, which the governor had no inkling of and leading to his eventual “emergence of Governor Ayade as the CSO Man of the Year, was a product of a keenly contested and due process compliant selection system.”
Explaining why Ayade was chosen, CISNALA said that, “It is for his recorded milestone in good governance, democracy dividends, people’s oriented policies and programmes, transparency and accountability, as well as infrastructure and human capital development.”
The organization maintained that, other considerations for the award was “his strident green life advocacy, construction of the largest garment factory in Africa, construction of multi-million dollar rice city project, completion of Calabar International Convention Centre, prompt and regular payment of workers’ salaries, ongoing construction of his signature projects, namely, the Bakassi Deep Seaport and 260 km Digital Superhighway, among others.”