GOV ENO’S LEGACIES: BEYOND CONCRETE AND CABLES

GOV ENO’S LEGACIES: BEYOND CONCRETE AND CABLES

By Anthony Udoh

In Nigeria, and some parts of Africa, the assessment of leadership performance is almost always based on visible infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, public buildings, and other tangible projects.

This approach often focuses on tangible, physical evidence of progress over intangible, long-term development metrics, which sometimes are foundational and very critical to the infrastructural transformation.

This yardstick contradicts the template of measuring true leadership which, social engineers including Engr. Michael Kalip Kadala, member of NSE and COREN, describe as not merely about titles or office, but by responsibility, foresight, and the capacity to deliver lasting social impact.

In Kadala’s view, these metrics used to evaluate Presidents, Governors, and legislators are fundamentally flawed, focusing on visible activity rather than transformational results.

For three years, as Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Pastor Umo Eno has demonstrated laudable commitment to quite a number of tangible impactful projects including; the reclamation of life- threatening gully erosion at Dominic Utuk Street and Udo Inwang axis – transforming it to a world class tourism center, the ARISE Palm Resort; huge investments in primary schools and primary health centers, international hospital, international convention center, the CNG bus initiative and the terminal, revitalizing the Oron maritime sector by developing a modern maritime terminal, shoreline protections, and ferry services to boost trade and tourism and others.

However, the real mccoy is in the intangible, the digitalization and huge investments in systemic transformation to make life easier and merrier for the people.

While this systemic transformation may sound abstract for some, many could relate with the story of Paul Udoakah who retired from the civil service in the year 2000. By the mercies of God he was still strong, hail and hearty, so could easily shuttle between Essien Udim local government council where he retired and Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat for periodic verifications.

In 2015, Udoakah was no longer a boy, he could hardly do a step from his sit. For every verification, he waited for his daughter to come in from Umuahia to drive him to Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat for verification. Though the pension was less than 20, 000 and could hardly cater for the daughter’s logistics, but she had to come, because for the father, the pension was a sort of life – line; and failure to meet up the verification exercise coud trigger his blood pressure with attendant disaster.

In 2021, Udoakah could no longer manage with the rigours of being bundled into a car as well as the frustration of exposing himself, given his condition, to the crowd at verifications.

He stopped going, the pension stopped and his breath stopped few months after.

More heartbreaking was the daughter’s statement, few days ago when she called. “If Umo Eno were the Governor, my father wouldn’t have died.”

But why, she said, “Daddy would have been doing verification from his room, and that little pension was his life-line. Sounds unbelievable, but was confirmed by the Commissioner for Science and Digital Economy, Dr. Frank Ekpenyong while speaking on the systemic transformation superintendent by the State Governor.

According to him, pensioners no longer have to queue at the State Secretariat in Uyo for verifications, yes ! The Governor has deployed computers to sub-treasuries in all LGAs for pension officers to support the administration of pension.

He said the State currently has a digital platform that enables civil servants and political appointees to carry out self-verification and access payroll information through their mobile devices using their unique identity numbers.

Through this platform, government workers can access their data, know their employment status, basic salary and other details as well as arrears and deductions.

Dr Ekpenyong explained that the digitization has exposed numerous sharp practices by employees of government, especially those who recieved double payments and of course killed forever, the almighty, ghost workers.

Speaking on the Treasury Single Account (TSA), he described it as a game changer, saying within few weeks of onboarding, the internally generated revenue has astronomically increased. He enumerated the countless leakages plugged through the process.

The online civil service recruitment was another area where he wowed everyone with his explanation. According to him, “we have never had it so good. All those who applied for the civil service recruitment had equal opportunities through the CBT, and the process was seamless”.

He enumerated other strides in systemic reforms to include; student Bursary Registration portal,
Digital payment of intervention grant to students with disabilities, Medical Distribution Portal, digital grant validation for traders, farmers and business owners, ARISE MSMEs grant portal, ARISE procurement portal
Akwa Ibom Electronic Identity passport (AKeID), and the pensions verification exercise which resulted in the removal of over 3000 non-existing pensioners from the database saving over N300m per month.

Others include; Business support Payment of N50,000 to 29,242 youths through the Arise Youth Employment portal, Verification of public servant where over 2300 ghost workers were removed from the payroll saving over N550 million per month,
development and deployment of the new Akwa Ibom unified payroll system.

These are hardly seen or heard of, but truth be told, Governor Umo Eno has not only saved billions of naira for the State through these systemic transformation, he has created a level-playing field for everyone, rekindled confidence in the. government and enhance transparency in government business.

With his foresight, and commitment to delivering a lasting social impact, far beyond his administration, the Governor has stopped at nothing to fulfilling his central campaign promise, “I will leave Akwa Ibom better than I met it.”

While it would have been easier, with “more personal gains” for the Governor to maintain the system as it were, his transformational commitment gives credence to the African proverb that “a cat that dreams of becoming a lion must lose its appetite for rats.”