The Cross River State Cassava Processing Factory located in Obubra Local Government Area is to produce commercial starch and modified flour, the state governor, Ben Ayade, has disclosed.
Ayade, who disclosed this at the weekend, explained that his administration’s choice of Obubra for the cassava processing plant stems from the abundance of the raw material in the area.
“The cassava processing factory is located in Obubra because Obubra is the largest producer of cassava in Cross River State and Cross River State is the largest producer of cassava in Nigeria,” he said.
Describing Cross River as Nigeria’s new industrial hub, Ayade expressed delight that his fellow governors have seen the wisdom in industrialising their states and have started copying his industrialisation policy.
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He, however, advised them not to copy Cross River wrongly.
“What I have done in Cross River State is to set up so many factories and each factory is sited in a location consistent with the source of raw material. I am happy today that I can see some of my colleague governors rapidly copying all of my industries and I hope they are careful not to copy an industry that is not applicable in their local circumstance,” Ayade said.
“For example, if you put a cocoa processing factory where you don’t grow cocoa, then it doesn’t add up, so you have to be careful which industry you copy from Cross River State, otherwise you will be copying a wrong industry,” he said.
Further explaining the essence of industrialisation, the Cross River State number one citizen said, “I am happy to see that gradually, almost all the governors are beginning to realize that creating industries is better than creating roads.
“Roads don’t create jobs, but when you create factories, people supply raw materials, people do logistics and delivery, when they start making money, they start paying taxes, then the profit from these taxes government will use to do roads.
“In China, roads are now gradually becoming private roads. So public roads are now hardly in use because people will use shortcuts, well-maintained roads to go through. It is a model I have found applicability in Cross River circumstance and I think it has worked very well.”
The governor further disclosed that the over 30 factories he has built are at the phase of market launch.
He noted that the industrialisation drive of his administration is ushering Cross River into a prosperity agenda never before witnessed in the state.
