{"id":10681,"date":"2018-10-08T09:31:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T08:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/?post_type=biography&p=10681"},"modified":"2018-10-08T11:54:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T10:54:19","slug":"duke-donald","status":"publish","type":"biography","link":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/biography\/duke-donald\/","title":{"rendered":"DUKE, Donald"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Duke, a former Governor of Gross River State, who during is tenure initiated the Obudu Ranch International Mountain Race which attracted contestants and visitors from other countries. In 2005, he created a special reserve fund for the state meant to \u2018\u2018hedge against economic downturn, and the inevitable rainy day\u2019\u2019. This was meant to cushion the effect of unforeseeable economic challenges that may occasion uncertainty in the state’s Internally generated revenue, as well as monthly allocation from the federal government.
\nHe also initiated the Calabar Carnival which started in 2004 and is popularly referred to as “Africa’s biggest street party.
\nDonald Duke initiated the Tinapa Resort project as a way to boost business and tourism in the state. Over $350 million was spent on initial development before phase 1 opening in April 2007. BBC reported in September 2006 that Governor Duke was the only governor specifically mentioned as not being under investigation by the federal Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. Donald Duke announced that he would run for the presidency in the 2007 presidential election, but stepped aside in favour of the eventual winner, Umaru Yar’Adua. On June 8 2018, Donald Duke declared interest in running for Presidency in 2019. On September 4, 2018, Donald Duke decamped from People’s Democratic Party to Social Democratic Party. On October7, 2018, Donald Duke emerged as the Presidential Candidate of the Social Democratic Party for the 2019 general election. he polled 812 votes defeating his close rival, former Minister of Information, Prof. Jerry Gana, who polled 611 votes at the party\u2019s National Convention held at Old Parade Ground, Abuja.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":24065,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","categories":[749,165,166],"writer":[],"class_list":["post-10681","biography","type-biography","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-administrator","category-legal","category-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/10681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/biography"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/10681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24063,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biography\/10681\/revisions\/24063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10681"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blerf.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/writer?post=10681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}