Ayade is BusinessDay Best Governor in Agriculture Sector

Cross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade, has won BusinessDay Newspaper Award for the Best Performing Governor in agriculture sector.

The newspaper said the award was in recognition of Ayade's revolutionary strides in agriculture.

Only recently, President Muhammadu Buhari was in Calabar, the Cross River state capital, to inaugurate Africa's first and only Rice seeds and seedling factory.

The factory is one of the governor’s signature agricultural projects.

At the inauguration, President Buhari commended the governor for keying into the economic diversification policy of his administration by investing heavily in agriculture, describing him as a reference point in agricultural revolution.

Ayade who has often spoken of his determination to decouple Cross River State from over dependence on oil- driven federal allocation through diversification of the state's economy, is also building an ultramodern rice mill in Ogoja and a 30,000 per annul cocoa processing plant in Ikom.

He has also established a cotton farm in Woda, Yala, and banana plantation in Odukpani. Work has also commenced on the Calabar ultramodern poultry farm and yellow maize farm in Obubra among others.

The Business Day Award, which will be conferred on the governor on July 19, 2018, at the Transcorp Hilton in Abuja, is the latest in a string of awards that have been conferred on Ayade in recognition of his achievements since assuming office three years ago.

He had previously won the Vanguard Newspaper Governor of The Year Award; Authority Newspaper Governor of The Year Award; Tell Magazine Man of The Year Award and The Most Labour Friendly Governor Award from the organised labour.