BY BASSEY INYANG
On Saturday, March 11, 2023, the people of Akwa Ibom State, like their compatriots across the length and breadth of Nigeria, will troop out to elect their governor for the political dispensation commencing May 29, 2023. For the people of the state, it will be a choice between the devil they know and the angel they do not know; a choice between certainty and uncertainty, and a choice between going forward and moving backward.
The choice will be between progressing with the current trajectory of development which they have witnessed in the last seven and a half years, giving a glimpse of the short, medium and long term developmental strides of the state, and treading a path that nobody can decipher at the moment. From what they have seen under the administration of Udom Emmanuel, the prospect of re-inventing the wheel does not look attractive.
Pastor Umo Eno, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 election, is currently campaigning on an agenda he has strategically christened A.R.I.S.E. (agricultural revolution, rural development, infrastructural maintenance/advancement, security management and educational advancement). A cursory look at the programme shows a deliberate attempt by the candidate to continue and, in fact, progress along the path which the current administration has drawn up – the path that has enabled Akwa Ibom to enjoy relative peace in a country that is plagued by insecurity, thus creating the environment that has made development in all sectors thrive.
A major bane of development in Nigeria has been the proclivity by successors to discard the programmes and projects of their predecessors, no matter how lofty and beneficial they might have been, for the vain-glorious pursuit of those that would separate them from the latter, based purely on the pedestrian objective of not wanting to be identified with the programmes of others. It is the reason the country is littered with abandoned and uncompleted projects and programmes that have cost tax payers colossal sums of money.
At its current level of development on all fronts – infrastructure, healthcare delivery, security, industrialization, job creation, rural development and education – Akwa Ibom needs a leader who would use the template that has been designed by the current administration to take development many notches higher, for the betterment of the lives of the people, today and for generations yet unborn. It does not need a leader that would pander to political interests by seeking to chart an unknown path that may lead to a reversal of the gains that have been recorded these past seven and a half years, which could result in complete retrogression.
Eno has demonstrated capacity and competence to be the leader the state needs in the post-Emmanuel era, both as a private sector operator who has run successful enterprises and created thousands of jobs, and in the public sector where he ran a ministry whose activities affected the generality of the people. His experience in the two sectors has prepared him adequately for the onerous task of building on the gains of the current administration. He is, undisputedly, the round peg that can easily fit into the round hole in the state.
The A.R.I.S.E. agenda of the PDP candidate shows a clear understanding of the immediate needs of the state. These include food security, in a country where natural conditions that include climate change, and the high rate of insecurity, have impacted negatively on food supply; expansion of infrastructural development in critical sectors; further improvement in healthcare delivery and education, as well as a deliberate and focused rural development programme that would discourage rural-urban migration by making all parts of the state conducive to live and work.
A deeply religious man who shepherds over a large gathering of Christians, Eno is widely known to be a man who not only preaches peace, but also practically promotes it. His disposition to peace puts him in good stead to work for the sustenance of the peace that makes Akwa Ibom stand out, relatively speaking, in the midst of insecurity.
With the agenda, Eno hopes to capitalize on his many decades’ experience in job creation to expand the frontiers of industrialization by not only setting up industries, but also making the investment climate in the state even more conducive for private enterprise, with the aim of boosting the job creation efforts of his administration, if voted into office. The candidate recognizes the correlation between unemployment and insecurity, the reason his development agenda would pursue job creation on a massive scale.
The policy of the current administration to open up Akwa Ibom for tourism and investment through land and air transportation has put the state on the national and international map, with Ibom Air as the flagship of this endeavour. With the A.R.I.S.E. agenda, Eno hopes to make the airline a major carrier in the Gulf of Guinea and the West African sub-region, for the realization of the objective of facilitating the emergence of Akwa Ibom as an industrial hub in the two regions. This underscores the candidate’s eagerness to drive home the transformation that has commenced, which is aimed at turning Akwa Ibom from a purely civil service state to one with an economy that is private sector-driven.
Whether intentional or coincidental, the A.R.I.S.E. sobriquet resonates with the Dakkada philosophy of the Udom administration which challenges Akwa Ibomites to rise to greatness by utilizing their God-given potential to attain any height of their dreams. Without doubt, this signifies the PDP candidate’s readiness to continue with the lofty programmes and policies of the present administration that have set the state on the path to economic development, growth and prosperity, which is encapsulated in the Yak ika iso iso (Let’s continue to move forward) mantra of the present administration.
Inyang lives in Uyo.
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