JONATHAN'S VISIT, AKPABIO'S INTERVAL TO SHOW WORKING
A million times, people have failed to realise their potentials, and that is not because they lack the capability, but because of fear of uncertainty. Just as H. P. Lovecraft puts it, 'the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear'.
No fewer than a million ambitions of people to become engineers and medical doctors have submerged in fear, borne out of the notion that mathematics is a pretty difficult subject. Most people who would have ordinarily and easily make it as engineers, doctors, aeronauts, astronomers and scientists have simply forfeited their dreams because of a notion that Mathematics is a very tough and tasking subject. To go for these professions with poor mathematics skills is to have an ambition directly disproportional to one's intellectual capacity.
Despite this nausea for the subject, Mathematics remains a significant and important subject, and whether or not one likes it, nobody can live without it. But perhaps the symbolic feature of mathematics is that to arrive at the correct answer, one must use the right formulae and one must also show working, detailed working. Once the correct formula is correctly applied, the probability to arrive at the correct answer is clearly usually at an all-time high.
Good leaders are like good mathematicians- they are bold, apply the right formulae and they show working. In Akwa Ibom State, Governor Godswill Akpabio endeared himself to his people as a courageous leader with a strong political will. As John Putnam puts it, Courage is not the absence of fear, but the ability to face it. And so, Akpabio has transformed mathematics into a very simple and interesting subject. Not only has he invented new mathematical theories, he has also modernise and meticulously apply existing ones and suddenly everyone is seeing mathematics differently.
From the 29th of May, 2007 when he first assumed office, Governor Godswill Akpabio has engaged almost everyone in the state in a counting spree, as the number of projects executed by his administration increase day after day in geometric progression.
During the early days of this administration, with roads such as Afaha Obong-Etim Ekpo- Ika/Iwukem road, the Abak-Etim Ekpo Road, the Ikot Oku Ikono-Ekim Itam Road, to the Aka - Nung Udoe way being constructed, people were able to easily count about 180 roads of about 400 kilometers; today, several had since lost count and may be shocked to learn that no fewer than 350 roads of not less than 1,800kilometers have already been commissioned during the life of this administration.
Scenes of flyovers, fundamental social infrastructure, modern hospitals, and basic rural projects that were hitherto unrealistic theories of good governance, now dot the nooks and crannies of the state, which means that in Akwa Ibom has suddenly emerged a new model of good governance.
Akpabio means development. All major communities in the state are motorable with standard roads. Even areas where roads where last constructed during the colonial era, now have two-lane roads to their farms. There is no need to mention electrification and water projects since it is everywhere in the state. Otherwise, where would one start or end?
Perhaps the mathematical aphorisms that leadership is measured by the level of satisfaction on the faces of the people is more realistic in the land of uncommon transformation as people do not need to read large History titles by Arnold Toynbee, Benedicto Croce and others before having to understand the essence of good governance.
Indeed, from the realities on ground in Akwa Ibom, Governor Akpabio's achievements are arresting, stupendous and colossal; the story is clear, in pictures and in words. A reflection on his overwhelming achievements shows that Chief Akpabio, prior to May 29, 2007 counted and kept statistics on the problems of the state, and pronto, tackled them adequately using time tested mathematical models. Even the health sector has never had it this good. Today, pregnant women, the aged and children not more than five years of age, receive medical attention free. Yet, they don't have to converge and queue for this. Why? Because medical institutions are ubiquitous in Akwa Ibom, at least, each local government area can boast of one. Those without general hospitals have now been given cottage hospitals, and incidentally, President Jonathan was on hand to commission one of these hospitals in Ibeno in 2011, while His wife commissioned a second one in Essien Udim later that same year.
Thursday, August 14, 2014 will provide Akwa Ibom State under the leadership of Chief Godswill Akpabio to show working to President Goodluck Jonathan as he comes visiting. The people of Akwa Ibom may have to be pardoned if they have probably lost count of the number of times that the Presidency has been hosted in the state, with President Jonathan, Dame Patience Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo each having taken several turns in visiting the state.
It would be recalled that such presidential visits have previously been occasioned by the commissioning of new turnkey projects executed by the Akpabio administration, such as the Akwa Ibom International Airport, the flyovers, the e-library complex, ultramodern Governor's lodge, new hospitals, international stadium to an ultramodern business and leisure resort, and numerous dual carriage expressways. Indeed Nigerians have come to believe in Akpabio's Akwa Ibom.
As is usually the case during previous visits, President Goodluck Jonathan is billed to embark on the commissioning and inspection of completed and ongoing projects of the Akpabio administration. According to the schedule of the visit, the President will commission the gas processing facility complete with 69 kilometers pipeline at Uquo, in Esit Eket local government, constructed under a public-private partnership arrangement between Septa Energy and the Akwa Ibom State government.
The August visitor, who is paying a fourth official visit to the state, will also commission the Goodluck Boulevard on Ring Road III in Uyo and also perform the ground-breaking ceremony for a $1.5 billion Methanol Plant at the coastal community of Ibeno; inspect the dualization works on the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene-Aba Federal Road, undertaken by the state government; inspect the first suspended bridge in the State currently under construction in Abak and thereafter inspect the 30,000 capacity Ibom International Stadium, Uyo, for which he laid the foundation stone in October 2012.
One thing the President has noted over time in the state is equity in the distribution of the projects on ground. Politically, Akwa Ibom, like every other State in Nigeria, is divided into three Senatorial Districts. And there is a fair share of projects across these zones, with cities like Ikot Ekpene, Essien Udim, Eket, Oron, Etinan, Ikot Abasi, Uyo, Abak and Mkpat Enin, wearing new looks. Evidently, there is virtually nothing Akpabio has not done to put education on the front burner of his administration. He did not just proclaim free and compulsory education. New teachers were recruited, subventions given to schools, renovation of schools also came up, and everything that could enhance that programme was taken seriously, and it has been worth it, as every Nigerian child resident in Akwa Ibom attends school free of any charge.
This section of mathematics of governance is show working. Let those who doubted see, and those who may learn a thing or two get the opportunity. The charismatic mien and experiential candour in Akpabio's leadership is unprecedented.
To Akpabio, there is no justification whatsoever on why his people-the fulcrum of his leadership, should not be made to smile. And they have been smiling with thanks. That is how Akwa Ibom is working. And it is through the application of good formulas and comprehensive working.
As the President visits Akwa Ibom, he will have reasons to believe that the state has already deservedly become a delightful destination for investors and tourists because of the vibrancy of the economic potentials in the state through the state government's life-changing projects and programmes.
It is instructive to observe that the people of the State view Jonathan's visit as homecoming, and can count enough reasons to celebrate the President as their true son. Only last month, a new federal polytechnic was sited in Akwa Ibom, while approval has been since been granted and development has commenced at the Ibaka Deep Seaport project in the state. The President has also seen to the emergence of Governor Godswill Akpabio as the Chairman of the PDP Governor's Forum, while two other indigenes of the State Mr. Bassey Dan Abia and Mrs Akon Eyakenyi are now the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Niger Delta Development Commission and the Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban Development, respectively. The absolute romance between Goodluck Jonathan and Akwa Ibom people was attested in the 2011 General Elections where Akwa Ibom routed overwhelmingly in support of the President Jonathan's emphatic victory and by extension, victory for the PDP.
When they say politics is a game of numbers, it is a mathematical allusion. In a progression, mathematics is usually seen ascribing premium on the bigger numbers. Example, ten is greater than five, and twenty is greater than ten. But a glimpse of the new formula invented by Governor Akpabio, known as transformational mathematics, has made it possible for seven to be greater and more significant than twenty. Out of her 27 years of existence, the justification for excitement and satisfaction is buried in the juicy bosom of seven years; seven years of uncommon transformation; seven years as icing on the cake; seven years of accomplishing an outsize vision. And this is why in January this year, all journalists and media proprietors of independent media establishments in the state came together to recognise and celebrate Governor Akpabio. In their words, 'Akwa Ibom in less than seven Akpabio years, has fared far better than the Akwa Ibom of the twenty previous years'.
In an arithmetic made simple, that has defied all existing formulas, and to the astonishment of legendary Pythagoras Pythais, and our own Chike Obi, Akpabio has in seven years appropriately committed resources to countless projects and programmes that have not only made every Akwa Ibom person to be proud of his state of birth, but have also taken the state to assume the status of a delightful destination for tourists and investors, a feat that could not be achieved in 20 previous years.
Written by Essien Ndueso.
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