The Cross River Governor-elect, Sen. Liyel Imoke, has assured the electorate of more dividends of democracy in his second term.
Imoke gave the assurance on Sunday in Calabar in an interactive session with journalists in his private residence after he was declared the winner of Saturday’s election as governor-elect by INEC.
“ln one sentence, we want every Cross Riverian to be far better than they were when we met them and when we came in, that is the intention,” he said.
He also commended the mass media for the effective and balanced coverage of the Feb. 25 poll in the state.
“I thank you for all the support and the good reporting we have received. It has been very participatory and you have been balanced in your reporting.
“I want to thank the Almighty God for this day and everything, especially throughout this period that is truly historic,” the governor-elect said.
He said he had been involved in many elections in Cross River and could retire from politics and go into election consulting because he had done not just his own election but had been involved in elections since 1992 when he ran for the Senate.
“I?? ran elections in 1999, 2003 and then 2007, 2008 and now in 2012.
“It is very rare for you to have a situation where you run through all these elections and in all of them you come out a victory”.
“And I think that for us it is extremely special, that is why we are particularly appreciative, and particularly grateful for the support of the people of Cross River for their affection, for trust and confidence and for the outpouring of affection,” he said.
“It’s been tremendous and unprecedented and very rare that after so many years in politics, you go into an election and your margin of victory seems to get higher.
“{Normally, no matter what you try to do when you are in the game and no matter how you try to serve the people, the normal thing is that in popularity rate you invariably come down when you go to public office.
“But in this particular instance, it appears that the reverse is the case. The margin of victory in this last election is probably the highest that we had in the state and in gubernatorial elections,’’ he added.
The governor-elect said his administration would be focused on developing a service-driven economy.
“We need to focus and pay more attention to hospitality, industries, pay more attention to what we call the knowledge economy that we are trying to develop, including the Tinapa, Knowledge City and other projects along this line.
“We also believe that we can properly position ourselves to deliver services in the mines, industries, meetings, incentives, conferences, entertainment — that is why we are developing the international conference center and other facilities.
“We also believe very strongly that in addition to this is the entire need for some medical tourism as part of the services we are going to deliver,’’ he said.
“We think that we will continue to take government to our people, that is extremely critical, he said.
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