Date Published: 06/29/09
AKPABIO: REVIVING A FAILED STATE
By Peter Udiong
“When you are aware that you are a symbol, it causes you to search your soul constantly, to see if you live up to the high and noble principles that people surround you with”– Martin Luther King, Jr
Akwa Ibom State is one of the military inventions having been carved out of the present Cross River State on September 23, 1987 by the Babangida administration. The creation was considered an avenue for a meaningful development in all nooks and crannies of the state.
On May 29, 1999 the State had a civilian governor, Obong Victor Attah in the saddle. He is an architect by training and incidentally he drew the Uyo master plan. As a builder, the public were elated and envisaged that with the governor’s background, the state would cross the Red Sea of lack of achievements. The expectations were enormous and to the high heavens.
In the first tenure of that administration, there was nothing tangible on the ground to show, thereby negating the word ‘power’ which is the ability to achieve purpose and also ability to affect change, positively. Obviously, there was increase in revenue from the federal allocation but no appreciable development to match the revenue realized or projects evenly distributed among senatorial districts in the state.
The state was more prominent in resource control rather than in development and lacked the creative and organizational ability to re-engineer, refocus and reposition the state to other meaningful and rewarding activities. Hence, resources of the state were wasted on the struggle for resource control, and other forlorn projects. In that era, none of the roads in the state was motorable except within Uyo metropolis. To the authorities development was only centred in Uyo metropolis.
It dawned on members of the administration that they had achieved nothing at the tail of their second tenure. They were like a drowning folk who would clutch at anything in sight to survive. This is certainly reflecting in the appraisal of the Attah administration in Akwa Ibom State as a colossal failure and a tragic deficit of human will.
Consequently, lots of uncompleted projects such as Ibom Power Plant (IPP), Akwa Ibom International Airport , A-3 Star Le Meridien Ibom Hotels and Golf Resort with less than 20 rooms, etc. were commissioned in the dying minutes of that administration. Or can Attah beat his chest affirmatively and pinpoint his achievements for eight years? The fact that a river is calmed does not mean that there are no crocodiles; certainly there are. But posterity will definitely judge Attah on the legacy he bequeathed on his eight-year- reign in Akwa Ibom State .
Governor Godswill Akpabio took the mantle of the state without anything to consolidate even small things that matter and make life liveable. Rather he inherited various uncompleted projects, empty treasury and debts as a legacy for eight years tenure of Attah’s administration.
But Governor Akpabio has decided to revive, improve and add more value to those uncompleted projects of the previous dispensation and he is facing the challenge head-on. We hail Chief Godswill Akpabio for not abandoning those projects and embarking on his own.
Despite the fact that the Attah administration did not provide a template for him to function, Governor Akpabio has so refined and revolutionized governance and the art to make it much more productive and meaningful to the people.
In his resolve, he was quoted recently by one of the national dailies as saying: “I would never be deterred in giving a purposeful leadership to the people even in the face of distractions.” Attah is truly a distraction in this case. But he has forgotten that Governor Akpabio has become a celebrated reference point in progressive governance by making Akwa Ibom experience and reap achievements of the beautiful edifice called democracy.
Governor Godswill Akpabio is not daft or visionless. He is focus and ready to develop the entire state, a complete departure of the past dispensation. In just two years, he has shown that he has the vision to deliver exceptional dividends of democracy and revive a failed State under the immediate past dispensation.
In this exercise, we wish Gov. Godswill Akpabio more ground-breaking achievements in your proven determination to revive Akwa Ibom State .
· Peter Udiong is a Journalist in Lagos
