Date Published: 03/04/10

The Transformation of Akwa-Ibom State By Fidel Odum

As a keen watcher of Akwa Ibom State, I took great interest in the Daily Independent’s Man of the Year 2009, Governor Godswill Akpabio: “A Transfortive Force”, page 33, January 1, 2010.  It is a balanced effort to address issues which have shaped the state’s growth and development in the past decade.  Any fair-minded analyst will agree that since 1999 the image of Akwa Ibom has been largely spruced up and its citizens now walk tall across the federation, while migration to distant cities has drastically reduced.  It is no longer easy to find domestic servants from both Akwa Ibom and Cross River States as used to be the case, especially male cooks, stewards and gardeners.  These new trends came as a result of deliberate measures taken by the state’s leaders.

After visiting Akwa Ibom state in the closing years of Obong Victor Attah’s administration, witnessing what a former British High Commissioner commended as “a massive construction site”, I was greatly inspired. I felt sorry for my own state, Anambra, after seeing how modern facilities such as abattoirs, motor parks, shopping plazas, woodwork markets and saw mills (complete with restaurants, post offices etc.), housing estates and ultra-modern schools blended with gigantic development projects in power, airport and others. I doffed my cap to the technocrat who harboured this vision.

But shortly after Chief Godswill Akpabio took over in May 2007 as State Governor, there occurred skirmishes and open political warfare between him and his predecessor, Obong Victor Attah, his former boss and mentor.  I was one of these writers who rose up in defence of Attah for the simple reason that I was a witness to his transformative leadership.  Many others vehemently opposed Akpabio for his vindictiveness in biting the fingers that nurtured him, out of a lingering bitterness from Attah favouring his son-in-law for the 2007 gubernatorial contest. The consensus canvassed by many analysts was that by-gones should be by-gones in order to proceed with a seamless transition and continuity of Attah’s vision of which Akpabio was also a builder.

What the Independent has admirably achieved is to demonstrate the fact that, just as in Lagos and Delta States, Akwa Ibom has finally bowed to reality and linked up with the principal transformative projects of Victor Attah for the general good of Akwa Ibomites.  It is never too late to correct one’s mistakes if there is goodwill.  To his credit, Chief Akpabio has silently surrendered to the truth, basking as he is doing now in the sun of Attah’s achievements.  To both men will the glory acrrue in the end, instead of any one person seeking to usurp the credit.  Chief Akpabio should take more seriously Attah’s constructive criticisms regarding the grandiose and self-promoting nature of his other policies and projects.  History will be ruthless in its verdict and by then all those misleading the man with groveling psychophancy will have disappeared.

The Independent rightly identifies the seminal importance of education in social change and transformation and how illiteracy was the major cause of Akwa Ibom’s past backwardness.  Be it the U.K of 1944 or the Western Region of Nigeria in 1957 or the emergent economies of Asia such as Malaysia and Singapore, the primary tool of development is always adequate education.  The foundation laid by Victor Attah in his first term after bemoaning the lot of his people as domestic staff to more privileged Nigerians, was to grant free education to students up to the level of JSS III, matching words with facilities.  He built model secondary schools in several local government areas which, in their modern architecture, resemble university campuses.  I saw them myself and was marveled.  Attah also dispatched many students abroad to learn, first-hand, vital techniques to assist in his Science Park programme and other projects such as the airport.  I have not been to Akwa Ibom since 2007, but I gather from news reports that the Akpabio government has introduced compulsory and free education to SSS III. However, critics maintain that there are not enough classrooms and related facilities to make this practicable.  One would like to read about concrete numbers of schools, hospitals, housing schemes and other social services/projects such as the ones journalists toured in the Attah years.

A good leader listens attentively to objective criticisms.  The Independent was objective in calling attention to popular dismay in Akpabio’s construction of a N7 billion “befitting” Government Lodge at a time many pressing social needs should have been addressed.  As the writer well pointed out, England’s 10 Downing Street remains a modest example of that country’s fiscal prudence, just as Indian Prime Ministers live in a humble official residence.  Many have also screamed in utter disgust about the incredible amount of N32 billion being poured into the Ibom Tropicana Complex, a multi-facility project, which skeptics doubt will ever bear the expected fruits of tourism in a time of global economic recession.

The Independent’s findings that Attah’s projects such as the airport are “no white elephant” after all but “based on cold and hard economic calculations,” and that the airport is destined to become “the hub of aviation services in sub-Saharan Africa”, coincide with the former governor’s remarks at a recent national press conference.  See The Independent and other dailies of 20 th Dec., 2009.  According to Akpabio’s predecessor, he saw the need from the outset for an hotel of national and international potentials (which Le Meridien and Golf Resort has become), as well as an airport to bring tourists and professionals, but one with a difference, hence the hangar and MRO (maintenance, repairs and overhaul).  Both the hotel and the airport, the latter commissioned by Akpabio last September, promise to generate substantial foreign exchange earnings for the state.

Since such transformative projects could not work efficiently without power, said Attah, he foresaw the need for an independent power plant to ensure regularity of these service centres, as well as provision of power to common workers such as barbers, hair dressers, vulcanizers, restaurateurs, bakers and so on.  Other transformative projects initiated by Attah include the University of Technology, the Ibaka Seaport, the Science Park and Information Technology schemes.

Now that Akwa Ibom State is about to add 191 megawatts to the national grid out of Attah’s three turbines and Akpabio’s alleged N5 billion input, the Independent has thrown light on the significance of this achievement by declaring: “Akwa Ibom was one of the first states to embark on an Independent Power Project (IPP).  There is a beautiful synergy here as the IPP is located near the Aluminum Smelting Plant at Ikot Abasi.”

In conclusion, the newspaper beautifully speaks the minds of objective observers by pointing out that “the synergy between the IPP project, the education initiative, and the massive investments in physical infrastructure, if built upon and sustained, will place Akwa Ibom at the forefront in the decades to come.”  This, precisely, is what analysts have been saying all along these past three years.  Obong Victor Attah is a technocrat of rare breed.  His vision for his state’s economic take-off was holistic and long-range in nature, partly explaining why he naturally would have preferred a much better trusted successor to carry on with the projects.  It was for example, the dream to connect the entire state with telecommunication and to put an end to Akwa Ibomites traveling all the way to Calabar to make international calls that induced him to invest in ECONET (now Zain).  This initiative placed Akwa Ibom as third, after Lagos and Abuja, of the first states to be connected with GSM services. Likewise, all the other projects, big and small, were motivated by the zeal for economic transformation.  To God be all the glory that, at last, we have arrived in the cul-de-sac of truth, that Attah’s transformative projects should be commended and completed, as opposed to rushing into new ones which could become “handy for corrupt practices”, as well expressed by the DailyIndependent.  All will be well that appears to be ending well.  Given the tremendous inflow of funds Akwa Ibom is enjoying, probably second to no State, there is a great expectation for Akwa Ibom’s total transformation.

Odum, aloymaria_best@yahoo.co.uk, resides in Lagos.