EBERE WABARA [email protected] 08055001948
AS a former Public Relations Manager in Equitorial Trust Bank Limited (the partnership that works/worked), Globacom Telecommunications Limited (the next-generation network) and Sterling Bank PLC (the one-customer bank)— before gracefully resigning— I know full well what it takes to be an Executive Director in a first-tier bank or indeed any other institution with the same organisational profile. Therefore, the transition of Mr. Udom Emmanuel from one of the top-notch banks in Nigeria as an Executive Director to be at the helm of affair in Akwa Ibom State as the current governor can only be demonstrative of core professionalism superlatively amplified in governance.
With the aforementioned profound occupational pedigree, the only thing expected from this man of God is quintessential administration, especially coming on the heels of the uncommon transformative legacy institutionalized by his predecessor in office and now a senator, Barrister Godswill Akpabio. In the past one year or thereabouts, Udom Emmanuel has not just been basking on the euphoria of the attainments of the immediate-past governor, but has gone ahead to make them foundational props for his own inerasable marks in the historicality of Akwa Ibom State.
Therefore, going by his robust career antecedents, Udom Emmanuel is not one of those professional politicians who do not comprehend the essence of good governance let alone internalising it. I have established the incontrovertible fact that our subject this week is a professional in politics with emphasy on financial re-engineering and prudential fiscal management. It is this rich background, which is responsible, largely, for the novelties in the steering of the state in the past one year, that has made all the distinction.
When the Akwa Ibom State governorship tussle got to the Supreme Court, I declared unequivocally in a full-page analysis in this medium and another one in THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER, contemporaneously, that victory was under way for Udom Emmanuel’s divine mandate. One stupid lawyer from the state sent me an idiotic SMS that I was foolish by insisting that this mandate will be revalidated and that I should note that Udom Emmanuel was not like his predecessor in office who allegedly doled out large sums of money to a person like me from the public tilt! As a columnist used to such bovine interjections from numbskull and venomous readers, I laughed off the crass ignorance.
Of course, the revalidation happened and my vindication is now history, as they say. The lawyer was so daft that he said he knew I was from Abia State and I had the temerity to be talking authoritatively about his state! Little wonder the quality of law scholarship and practice has gone absymally down, almost irredeemable, with lawyers like this and one Barrister James Okpara.
Again, ahead of his one year in office, I declare that considering what he has achieved in the state already, all by God’s grace, Gov. Udom Emmanuel should start looking beyond 2019 as his re-election enjoys unparalleled foreclosure by virtue of the profundity of current achievements, which speak volumes of what to expect now and in the future. This realisation informed my passionate belief in this governor and my unflinching anticipatoriness through my affirmative choice of curious headline and overall standpoint of inalienability on this ordained anticipation. In just about one year, Udom Emmanuel’s indelible stamp on the state is becoming obviously immeasurable, as it is almost unbelievable that anyone could better Senator Akpabio’s first year as governor and possibly the remaining seven years for Udom Emmanuel, as projected here!
During electioneering, most politicians make wild promises on how they will do impossible things that had never been done. They live in a dream world where utopia is the order of the day. Not so with Udom Emmanuel who has set about massively industrializng his state as if he is striving after a Japan-like model. He enthuses that the civil service bureaucratic machinery cannot take the state to where it should be. Shortly, Akwa Ibom will become the country’s technological base. The rapidity of the on-going re-engineering of the state is aimed at not just human capital development, but a laudable source of revenue to the state. This is what happens when professionals run states—not marginally literate ex-civil servants or tycoons.
Already, investors are invading the state in exploration of joint-venture businesses with multifarious memoranda of understanding consummated. In the months ahead, cottage industries and factories will renew the landscape of the entirety of Akwa Ibom State. Presently, too, the automobile assembly plant inaugurated on his assumption of office will buzz with life, just as the LED factory and the metering establishment in Awa-Iman, Onne, will soon embark on production for national and transnational utility.
Equally receiving the governor’s attention are social infrastructural facilities in all the senatorial zones. Very soon, the state will wear a different new look with the currency of most parts of it looking like engineering sites. It is no longe going to be just the state capital, Uyo, which will become a novelty, as the uplift is generic in every ramification.
At the heart of all the foregoing is the enthronement of the ‘Dakkada’ philosophy, which has given the state a new definition of life. There is no more dependence of citizens on government for everything they need or being slavish in the alternative. The message of this philosophical journey has been internalised by Akwa Ibomites who now more than ever before appreciate the need for economic independence.
Perhaps, the leadership style of the governor has really contributed to the human and physical changes in the state, as Governor Udom Emmnanuel sees himself as a servant-leader shorn of the haughtiness of most of his peers in the corridors of power. An easy-going and God-fearing man, this is a governor, who has redefined governance and conducts himself with superfluous humility that you may hardly notice his presence if not revealed! His accomplishments speak for him wherever you step in.
With the diligent support of his delectable wife, Deacon Martha, it is not surprising that God is using this couple to bring a new lease of life to the inhabitants of this state through the instrumentalities of employment generation; wealth-creation initiatives; human capital transformation; girl-child upbringing and care for widows (at the instance of madam); industrialization of course; relentless and feverish upgrade of social infrastructures; and, above all, holistic governance with the fear of our Creator.
Governor Udom Emmanuel, God is with you, indeed!