Fellow Akwa Ibomites, My wife, Her
Excellency, Mrs. Martha Udom Emmanuel and I extend to you our heartiest wishes
for a Happy Akwa Ibom day. It is with intense delight and a deep sense of
pride that I address you today. Twenty-eight years ago, ecstatic
celebrations heralded the fulfillment of a dream that started in the 50s. Our
founding fathers, realizing that language and culture remain an everlasting
bond that connects people, started the agitation for State creation in Nigeria
by demanding for the creation of COR State.
As a testament that dream is
eternal, faith never fails and hope is enduring, the state of their dreams was
born in the year 1987. Today, we the proud descendants of these visionaries
glow with pride that the Akwa Ibom Project is alive and well. The
fundamentals of its growth and development are strong and resilient.
Twenty-eight years later, we have
evolved from a capital city that was for all a glorified village to a modern
metropolis with perhaps the most modern road network in the whole nation. We
have gone from a State where the people looked forlorn, to a land where people
now brim with infectious air of confidence. We have moved from a place where
people carried hopelessness as a badge, to a land where they now glow with the
“can-do” spirit. Significantly we have metamorphosed from an atomistic society
perpetually at war with itself as we had once been defined to an orchestra
playing the symphony of togetherness.
Let me use this opportunity to thank
our past leaders, the visionaries who even with the paucity of resources
managed to erect solid building blocks of development. We pay tribute to all
our past leaders namely: Senator Tunde Ogbeha, Major General Godwin Abbe (rtd),
Col Yakubu Bako (rtd), Air Commodore (Otuekong) Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), Late
Obong Akpan Isemin, Navy Captain Joseph Adeusi (rtd), Group Captain John Ebiye
(rtd), Obong (Arc) Victor Attah and Senator Godswill Akpabio. We appreciate
their giant strides in turning our state from a rural backwater to a modern
state.
Let me particularly applaud the good
works of the Uncommon Transformer, His Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio,
for transforming our State, and making it a destination of choice. Courtesy of
him Akwa Ibom State is celebrated all over the nation as an example of a
purpose–driven administration.
On May 29, 2015 you graciously
extended to me the mandate to be your servant- leader. In execution of this
sacred trust and in observance of the oath I took before our God and you all, I
have worked tirelessly to keep faith with that covenant. Today, barely four
months into the life of this administration, we have re-written the Akwa Ibom
Story. Work is ongoing on 137 kilometers of road courtesy of our
administration. These roads include;
·
Dualization of 21.7km- Uyo-Etinan Road
·
Construction of 39.4 km Etinan- Ndon Eyo Road with two bridges and
spur.
·
Construction of 7.3 km Ikot Ebekpo – Ikot Ebidang Road to aid the citing
of a clay refining factory.
·
Construction of 3.5km Ikot Udom Road with 15m span
bridge in Ibiono Ibom
Local
Government Area.
Resumption of work at Ikot
Ekara/Ikot Ibritam road in Oruk Anam LGA
·
Construction of 5km Ikot Usop- Ikot Edeghe Ikot – Ekpuk Road with
30m span bridge in Mkpat Enin Local
Government Area.
· Construction
of 5km Mkpok-Okat Road in ONNA Local
Government Area.
Work has also resumed on the
dualization of Eket-Ibeno Road; urban renewal projects within Eket and Oron
townships; construction of second runway at the Ibom International Airport;
construction of three collapsed bridges and internal roads in Obot Akara Local
Government Area; construction of 1.2km underground drainage in Uyo by Nsikak
Eduok/Oron road junction. Dualization of Uyo-Okobo-Oron Road linking East-West
road spanning 30km. Yesterday, I commissioned water reticulation and head-works
in Ifa Atai and Idu Uruan, in Uyo and Uruan LGA respectively. More of these
water projects will soon be commissioned. Also, a living legend in the person
of Dr (Sister) Ann Ward got cemented into our folklore when we commissioned an
ultra-modern gynaecology ward named after her in the 78 year old St. Luke’s
Hospital Anua. This aside, we also renovated a male and children wards for the
hospital.
We have spared no efforts in our
drive to industrialize our state. Peacock Paints has been revitalized and
recommissioned. We have performed groundbreaking ceremonies for the car assembly
plant in Itu LGA as well as the Low Energy Display(LED) Manufacturing plant at
Itam. We have brought the Shoprite Mall to the Tropicana in Uyo. We have also
performed the groundbreaking ceremonies of the Fertilizer Plant and the Daar
Communitations Broadcast complex at Abak. At the same time an Electric meter
assembly and clay processing plants are underway in Onna LGA. Our foreign
direct investment committee is on a roadshow attracting investments from over
Fifty countries that have indicated interest to invest in Akwa Ibom. The Ibom
deep sea-port project is on course. We have built more substations and this has
improved electricity supply significantly. We have invested heavily in skill
and manpower development for our teeming youths. In this wise we are training a
thousand youths in oracle technology. We also sent our youths to acquire skills
in agriculture in Israel, while another set will be sent for power sector
training. At the moment about 329 youths will soon commence training in
photography and film production.
Compatriots, we have spared no
efforts in attracting foreign direct investment.
What we have done in St. Luke’s
Hospital signposts our philosophy of Akwa Ibom arise captured in the
“Dakkada” Creed. Yesterday, we held a unique program- the First
Akwa Ibom Peoples Forum, where we read aloud this new Akwa Ibom creed
encapsulated in the ‘Dakkada’ philosophy.
Fellow citizens, the moral challenge
of today is that we must commit ourselves to not letting the labours of our
heroes past be in vain. Let us collectively initiate the state into the
path of moral transformation and spiritual re-birth. The uniqueness of this
year’s event is the launching of the 'Dakkada' campaign.
The campaign is a clarion call for
all Akwa Ibom people to rise to their true potential of greatness, spiritual
rebirth, moral transformation and re-orientation. The campaign is a call to the
faith that with God all things are possible, that we can rise above our
primordial biases, ethnicity, hatred, anger, bigotry and the exclusionary
tendencies. The campaign is a call for all Akwa Ibom people at home and in
Diaspora to deepen their value - sets; to re-invent the spirit of creativity
and chart a new course for the present and future generations.
For too long, our core value of
honesty and integrity became our undoing. Nigerians could only trust Akwa Ibom
people with their homes and kitchens; children and jewelry. So we served the
rich and the powerful and took care of their culinary needs. Servitude became a
badge pinned on us by the nation. But times have changed and the new Akwa Ibom
identity has emerged: bold without being obnoxious, confident without being
condescending, self-assured without being arrogant and above all, loyal and
deeply aspirational.
This is the new Akwa Ibom spirit, a
spirit that is aflame with greatness, a spirit that is not willing to play a
second fiddle, a mind that is conditioned to achieve success in spite of odds
that may be stacked against him. If America had their American ‘Exceptionalism’,
we, too, can have our own Dakkada philosophy.
Let us congratulate the women of
Akwa Ibom State and our First Lady, my dear wife, Her Excellency, Mrs. Martha
Udom Emmanuel for her successful launch yesterday of her Pet Project : Family
Empowerment and Youth Re-orientation Programme (FEYREP). This project plays
roundly into the overall social re-engineering that our administration is
currently engaging in. Women were the first to see Jesus when He resurrected,
we are, therefore, not surprised that they are set to be the first to make the
Dakkada move.
As we celebrate our 28th
anniversary, let us therefore, from the rice fields of Ini Local government
Area to the beachheads of Ibeno, and from the raffia city of Ikot Ekpene to the
undulating hills of Itu, hold our hands in unity and faith. Let us
further the journey of our collective growth with a mindset of greatness. Let
us arise because the Almighty God created us to be great, to be the best that
we possibly can. Ami mme ‘dakkanda’, Akwa Ibom e‘dakkada,’ Happy 28th
Anniversary and God bless Akwa Ibom State, God bless Nigeria.
