UNITED Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), has conferred Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, with the Award of Excellence for his leadership and foresight in improving the lives of the people of the state.
Presenting the award, the Executive Director, Centre for Peace and President/CEO of US-UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations, Mr. Guy Djoken, disclosed that, “as a token and testimonial to your leadership and foresight in the manner you are improving the lives of the people of Cross River State and Nigeria, we have decided to encourage you with this to boost your morale for more result-oriented initiatives.”
He lauded the state for being at the forefront of tourism development in the country. “Cross River has carved a niche for itself in Nigeria by pioneering tourism development in the country. This will afford us the opportunity of showcasing your rich cultural heritage and other bounteous potentials in the state for the world to come and invest in these boundless opportunities existing here.”
Continuing, the executive director added: “We want to help you have the Cross River State of United States because we see you as a very active state. So, as to enable you draw from the bank of opportunities we have in the United States through active collaboration and partnership with our chambers of commerce and industry to create wealth and continuously improve on the living condition of average member of this state.”
On areas of collaboration with the state, Djoken further disclosed that UNESCO will love to partner with the state to establish a virtual Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre that will serve as a call centre as well as support all other IT-related activities with the view to building the entrepreneurship, capacity as well as create jobs among the youths to make them self-reliant.
“Apart from our cardinal objectives of promoting peace around the world, free education for a civic society, we are encouraging entrepreneurship training among the young ones to make them self-reliant, create jobs and be employers of labour which is a big departure from what is currently the trend in Nigeria where everyone looks for white collar jobs that do not exist,” he added.