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Governor Godswill Akpabio declares that the main hall of the international conference centre being built in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State will be named after ECOWAS
| By Maureen Chigbo | Apr. 1, 2013 @ 01:00 GMT
AKWA Ibom State is building an international conference centre in Uyo, the State capital The Main Hall of the conference centre is to be named after ECOWAS as a tribute to the organisation for promoting integration, peace and stability in the region. Godswill Akpabio, governor of Akwa Ibom State, Thursday, March 14, told a visiting delegation of ECOWAS Commission led by Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, its President, that the hall would be equipped, among others, with facilities for simultaneous translation into 52 languages including those spoken in the country and the continent.
Akpabio described integration as an important vehicle for developing the region and realising its full economic potentials by deploying its vast human and material resource endowments, adding that Akwa Ibom State would leverage the benefits for its own development.
The governor also briefed the delegation, which was in the state for a three-day retreat about plans by his administration to also avail itself of the ECOWAS platform to establish partnerships for the development of the state, citing a recent agreement with a Ghanaian computer company to set up in the State to boost job creation and transfer of knowledge. In addition, the State is also building a Deep Sea Port to improve intra-regional trade.
The governor said the State was undergoing “uncommon transformation,” and urged the visitors to become its “ambassadors” having witnessed some of its strides, particularly in infrastructural development.
Earlier, Ouédraogo, who was visiting the State for the first time along with some other members of the delegation, briefed the governor on the purpose of the retreat and described as “exceptional” the achievements of the government. “For us, the retreat is an opportunity to review our programmes as well as discuss and harmonise views on how to implement our priority programmes in line with the directives of Heads of State and Government,” the President said during the meeting with the Governor, which was attended by Toga Mclntosh, vice-president, commissioners, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, and Nana Awa Daboya, president of the Community Court of Justice as well as ambassadors of ECOWAS
The 7th annual retreat of the ECOWAS Commission, community institutions, permanent and special representatives and heads of national units, the first under the commission’s present management, provided an opportunity to strengthen relations between the Commission and member-states in the coordination and implementation of regional programmes at the national level.
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