AKWA IBOM STATE

UDOM EMMANUEL: CONSOLIDATING INFRASTRUCTURE

Governor Udom Emmanuel came into office with a fivepoint agenda focusing on wealth creation; economic and political inclusion; poverty alleviation; infrastructure consolidation; and expansion and job creation. Udom’s best efforts, however, have been targeted at infrastructure development. He has completed over 250km of roads, while progress is being made on over 500km of roads and 17 bridges across the three senatorial districts of the state.

Similarly, more than 400 rural development projects across the 31 local government areas of the state are also being executed. Udom has also focused on rural electrification. His other signature projects include the proposed automobile assembly plant in Itu, the LED industry in Itam, a metering factory in Onna, the coconut plantation and refinery in the Mkpat-Enin, Ikot Abasi and eastern Obolo axis, a petrochemical/jetty project in Ibeno, and the second runway at the Ibom airport.

He has also secured 450 hectares of land in 15 local government areas for agriculture, supplying improved oil palm and cocoa seedlings to farmers as well as promoting cassava plantations.

He is developing the capacity of the people with 450 youths already trained in cocoa processing, 1,000 in Oracle database management and 100 in mechanised agriculture in Israel.

Yet, for a state that is the largest oil producer in the country and received the most from FAAC allocations and bailout funds in the last two years, its pace of development belies the revenue that has accrued to the state. Nonetheless, mention must be made of Emmanuel’s effort to almost double internally generated revenue from N14.79 billion in 2015 to N23.27 billion in 2016. Prior to 2016, Akwa Ibom’s IGR relative to other big oil producing states such as Rivers and Delta was disappointingly negligible as a percentage of total revenue.

But the state’s rising debt stock needs to be watched. Although Akwa Ibom gets considerable revenue from the centre, alarm bells are beginning to go off, raising doubts about the state’s march towards self-sustainability.