Akwa Ibom Governor Speaks, Why I wasn’t surprised by Akpabio’s defection – Udom Emmanuel

The Governor of Akwa Ibom State , Mr . Udom Emmanuel , in this interview with TUNDE AJAJA speaks on the recent political developments in the state and his plan for people of the state as he declares his intention to seek re- election in the 2019 governorship election
You recently declared your intention to seek re - election as the governor of Akwa Ibom State in the 2019 election; what are the things that should make the people of Akwa Ibom vote for you again?

In all sectors of the economy , the question anybody would ask is who could have done it better ? That is one . The second one is that in the face of the worst recession ever in this country, which was in 2016 and part of 2017, a governor could pull numerous projects through, and despite the challenges in the country, a governor was able to commit investors to bring money into the same economy going through recession. At that time , it would ordinarily take you almost 10 times the efforts it used to take you before to convince one investor to bring one dollar to Nigeria , but we were able to. So , I think it is highly commendable that we did all that and Akwa Ibom people appreciate it.

Beyond that , in 2016 , there were a number of months that our allocation really dwindled and could barely meet our first line charges, but in the face of that , we were paying salaries, pension and allowances and we didn ’t owe anybody . When we came into office, even the local government gratuity that was being owed from 2003 , we paid them. If you look beyond that and we start taking sector by sector , there are evidences of the much we have done in all the sectors.
Some of your critics , especially the opposition, believe that you have not done as much as you want people to believe. Could you tell us the specific things you have done in the different sectors?

In the education sector , for example, I pay West African Senior School Certificate Examination fees every year for our students, and while some states are retrenching, I ’m still recruiting teachers . The first batch of recruitment was 1 ,500 and the second batch is also 1 ,500 . So , the question is; how many states actually did these , vis- a - vis when there was so much money in the system? Our public schools are representing Nigeria in Sweden now in some SMART competitions . When the Peoples Democratic Party government (led by former President Goodluck Jonathan) handed over , a US dollar was N 186 , unlike today that we get it at about N 365 .

At that time, a Toyota Corolla was going for N 3 . 4 m , but now , the same car is over N 19 m . So , now , we have hyperinflation, with a reduced income and real value of money in people ’s hands , which is like a double whammy. But , in the face of these, a governor is able to pull through and is running a government as if nothing had happened. Don ’t mind what the propagandists are putting on the social media . Right now , we have intervened in the local government system and it can only take a magician to do much more in that area than we have done.

In agriculture , we have done a lot too . When we took over government, two cups of garri (cassava flakes ) was going for N 200 , but with collaboration with the farmers and government intervention , today , 13 cups of the that same gaari go for that same N 200 . People are beginning to see effect of the green house initiative that we introduced . In the past, there was a period you wouldn ’t find vegetable to buy in the market because of rain, but with the green house initiative, the essence is for us to have daily needs available at any point in time at affordable cost . Also , the rice we are growing today in one of the local government areas , even though we are still on a test run, you need to see the quality of the rice we are producing , or is it our cocoa plantation that you want to talk about , where the yield has really improved over time and we have had to bring a fertiliser blending plant.

So , in terms of agric , we have done a whole lot , and we now see youths going into farming , because we created appropriate pricing of farm produce in order to encourage farmers and have more people engaged in these activities.
There was also a report that in terms of infrastructure, there is not much to show. Could you tell us your achievement in that sector?

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