Chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) Prince Arthur Eze has hailed Cross River State Governor Ben Ayade’s industrial moves.

Eze, who spoke after inspecting industries at Ayade Industrial Park, said: “I have never seen such a thing anywhere in Africa. I have travelled round East, West and North Africa, but I haven’t seen such.

‘’The people of Cross River are lucky to have this young man as governor, who is creating jobs …with the intent to create more, and this gives hope for the future.

“Ayade is a wonderful human being and God will bless him for what he is doing in Cross River. This state had oil wells, but those wells were given to another state, but God sent you a good leader to take care of you…

“He has used the wisdom God bestowed on him to run the affairs of this state and I urge you to support him and build something that will be more long lasting than oil, which is agriculture.”

Speaking about possible areas of collaboration with Cross River State, Eze said: “Whatever Ayade does, I am interested in it. In fact, any way he needs me I will follow because he is a young man with much wisdom and energy.”

Eze promised to support the rice seedling and seeds multiplication factory with 1,000 bags of rice seeds, and requested land to cultivate ginger for export.

Ayade, who thanked Eze for his visit and interest in investing, said: “Prince Arthur Eze, conscious of the philosophy of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Nigeria without oil road map, has decided to divert part of his wealth from oil business into agriculture, not necessarily for profit, but to create jobs, put food on the table and create a horizon of opportunities for young men and women, irrespective of state.

“I thank you because you also intend to go into rice production and any other agricultural value chain. I am excited by your interest in our agro-allied value chain.

“As a state, we have invested in 33 industries and those industries cannot be run and operated by government. So, we need to find a third party that will take them off government and have private investors with integrity, character, honour and clean money to join us.”