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Akwa Ibom 2023: “I’ll Prioritize Job Creation, Rural Development & Agri-business- Umo Eno

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Michael Effiong
Umo Eno, a Pastor, is the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP) gubernatorial aspirant for Akwa Ibom State. He is an acccomplished entrepreneur and visionary leader who at one time was the second highest employer of labour in the state after the government.
In this interactive session with journalists, the former Commissioner of Lands and Water Resources, who prides himself as a man of capacity, character, competence and compassion discusses his life story and vision for the state.
Akwa Ibom is generally regarded as a civil service state. How do you intend to change that perception?
That impression is not true. Yes, that used to be the case, but governments over the years have worked hard to refocus the state and its people. Having lived and done business here for over 25 years, I can say that things have changed remarkably.
In deed, Governor Udom Emmanuel has done a lot in the area of industrialization. That is why we now want to connect the dots and ensure that there is a trickle-down effect of the infrastructure and industries on the people.
Is this what has inspired your ambition to run for governor?
Becoming governor for me is a calling, not an ambition. I believe that God at any point in time controls the destinies of men.
I believe that with my experience, expertise and track record, I have so much to offer our people by serving as their governor. And we have very clear short, medium, and long-term plans.
Our current government, like I said earlier, is investing heavily in infrastructure. For example, it has done major roads, set up Ibom Air and facilitated the setting up of many industries.
Therefore, we intend to ensure that our people enjoy the benefits of these industries and natural resources. We intend to connect the dots while furthering peace and prosperity
What will be your major focus?
We will be all about jobs, jobs and more jobs.The next government would provide jobs in so many ways.
We will put resources into the completion of the Science Park, which was started by Governor Victor Attah. We will promote the knowledge economy by also funding and creating ICT hubs that will engage our talented youths. We will award grants and as well as, low interest loans to SMEs.
As someone who started business from the very scratch, I know full well how funding can hamper a budding entrepreneur. So this will be a top priority.
 We want our people to earn a descent living through the work of their hands which we believe will be ultimately blessed by God
In addition, we will be involved in massive rural development. Our women will be supported in their petty businesses. We intend to invest in primary health care , rural electrification, revamp our schools and ultimately reduce rural-urban drift.
We are an agrarian state. We will harness our agriculture potentials, for example, the Oil Palm. We will invest in and explore the agriculture value chain of various crops. Agri-business will be encouraged because of its job creation and economic benefits.
Because of the current realities of the country and even the world, our state needs someone who understands the practical aspects of running the economy not just people who talk about it.
 I keep telling our people that if God gives me the opportunity, we intend to create a middle-class for this state
Akwa Ibom has a vast array of waterbodies, any plans for the riverine areas?
Of course, we have 129kms of coastline. I have promised that within our first six months in office. I will invest in trawlers and boats for our people, build refrigerating facilities and put a fish canning factory along those areas.
The people are really suffering, they are not making much from their sweat because others own everything they use. Our government will stand in the gap for them. We will also collaborate with the security agencies to give them adequate protection along the waterways.
Also, we will develop the tourism potential of these water bodies, our beaches will be upgraded and we will tie this with our comprehensive hospitality and tourism plan.
You know hospitality/ tourism sector is my forte. We will upgrade all our tourists sites, harness our tourism assets and revamp our beaches to international standard as well as provide all support services like roads, bars etc. Our goal is to make Akwa Ibom the number 1 tourism destination in Nigeria.
Seriously, we intend to make the state very investment friendly, our people are hospitable, we have excellent road network, our state is peaceful. So, Akwa Ibom will be the one-stop investment destination. We will be deliberate about attracting businesses and as a businessman, I know what is required to make this happen.
 In addition, I am probably the only candidate who has conducted a needs assessment and has plans for all sectors and LGAs of this state.
My vision is to deliver a prosperous state with ease of doing business. We want to create a state where every Akwa Ibom person will have a sense of belonging and where every part of the state will be developed based on comparative advantage.
I will round off by saying that I have an economic blueprint encapsulated in what we have called the ARISE Agenda. Which covers agricural revolution, infrastructural renewal and maintenance, women and youth empowerment, ICT development security management and sound education and healthcare sector management, sports and tourism development, reorganisation and upskilling of the civil service as well as wealth creation.
A lot of people say that you do not have the requisite political experience for the job at hand?
Really? I am probably one of the few who combines public sector and private sector experience.
In terms of political experience, I have been in politics for decades, though not an active participant. I began my stint in public service courtesy of Obong Victor Attah, who made me Chairman, Akwa Ibom Hotels and Tourisim Board from 2004-2007. While there, we made our modest contribution. It was under my watch that the first Hotel/Tourism Directory was published in this state.
After that assignment, I went back to my business until Governor Udom Emmanuel invited me to become Executive Director, Agricultural Investments Directorate of Akwa Ibom State Investment Corporation ( AKICORP). While there, among other things, we planned and developed the first ever comprehensive data base of farmers in the state. And we covered crops and animal farmers. It has helped government to easily coordinate, support, educate and execute programmes.
 Also, I was made to Chair the team to establish the Ibom Fadama Microfinance Bank. This was a project that had been in the pipeline for years, but we were able to get all the approvals done. The bank is now up and running.
It was while still on that assignment that I was made Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources. I was there for slightly over a year before I resigned to face this gubernatorial race.There too, we initiated the Akwa GIS project, began the revamping of Akwapalms which had been moribund for decades and also negotiated compensation for communities whose land had been acquired for years. As you can see, I have always tried to leave a mark in any assignment I take up. God has been faithful at all times.
In the private sector, I began my work career in banking and left paid employment as a Group General Manager to start my own business called Royalty Group, a company that at a time employed over 2500 people and was second highest employer of labour in the state. We were the first indigenous company to win catering contract in the oil and gas industry. We were servicing thousands of staff daily on different platforms. That takes a lot of discipline, precision, project management, personnel management, quality control, and above all integrity. That is why I say with all sense of modesty that no one in the race has my job creation and management credentials.
Let’s mellow down a bit. I have heard that your story is an inspirational one. Tell us about growing up?
I grew up in the Police Barracks. I am a Barracks boy. I started from the lowest of the low. I grew up in the barracks because my father was a police officer. Therefore, because of my upbringing, I understand community living, and I understand inter- tribal living. I wasn’t born with a silver spoon.
As someone from that kind of setting, people sometimes may look down on you, because you have to struggle to survive. But the culture of discipline was something that helped to shape one’s life.
Tell us about your dad, the police officer
Fine police gentleman, one of the finest I have seen. My father was trained by the British, a very strict disciplinarian, someone who will not take no for an answer, a man who brought us up under strict disciplinary conditions, clean person.
I remember that while growing up that he won the award of the cleanest officer of the year times. He was meticulous
He was the kind of man that when he sits down, he will rub his hands on the table to see if it was dusty. If it was, you would be in trouble.
My father will put his radio (radio Nigeria)on to listen to the 4 O’clock news because he will come back home by 3pm and he knew where he left the setting of that radio.
 So if anyone tampered with it, he usually finds out. He will call me, Umo, who touched the radio? and you dared not lie to him because he knew what had happened. That was the kind of father I had.
He paid attention to details. I think some of these characteristics I have imbibed, and I will eternally remain grateful to him.
What of your mum?
My mum was everything to me and I don’t like talking about it in interviews because sometimes I become emotional,you know my father died in active service in Kaduna and my mum was barely forty years then.
My mum gave up everything to take care of all of us, six of us .
My mum was there for us, she never got married again. We were her only priority.
I am happy that later, she came to live with us and enjoyed her older years. She was able to live peacefully with my wife in the same house until she passed.
She was my prayer warrior. To her, I was still that small boy. She will scold you for things you didn’t do right, and for the ones you did right, she will hug and pray for you. My mum was just special
Take us into your educational journey?
My first school was Local Authority Primary School in Ikeja, we just used to trek to school because it was close to the Ikeja barracks.
While other boys used to go out to play football after school, I could not because I used to have so many chores to do and you dared not go out without finishing all my tasks. That was how I lost interest in football.
When I finished my primary education at Local Authority, my parents felt that we had to understand our language and culture because at the time, when you speak Ibibio to us, we could hear but we could not speak. We only spoke English, pidgin and Yoruba.
My father and all police officers from here decided to send their children home. That was how I was bundled to St. Francis secondary school in Eket.
I spent only two years there because to be honest with you, I couldn’t really cope with the environment, the disciplinary nature, the punishments, it was just something I couldn’t stand so after my second year when I went on vacation, I was seriously sick so my mum decided that I should not return there despite my father’s insistence. That was how my mum took me to Victory High School in Ikeja which was where I eventually finished.I left as the Senior Prefect.
Pastor Umo Eno
Fill us in on the years between Secondary School and University?
The truth is that if you look at my CV, there is a lot of gap in my educational sojourn because when I finished secondary school and got employed in the bank. I started working in the bank two years before my father died.
I decided to work to augment the income of my parents and also save some money to continue my education.
I had been working for about two years when my father died. I was the eldest of six siblings, so I had to grow up very fast and become a bread winner.
At the time, too, I was courting my wife and she lost her mother too. She had five siblings as well and they too became my responsibility.
I was at the bank and was attending Apostolic church. It was in that church that I met a gentleman, Mr. Albert Inyang, MD, Bertola Machine Tools Nigeria Limited who invited me join his business because he knew the troubles I was going through and he stated that, if I worked hard, the money the bank was paying me in one year, I can make in one month.
He is still alive, he is one of the greatest men I respect because he gave me encouragement and that was how I found myself working for him as his Commercial Director and I moved on in life after that.
So, the gap in my education is the years spent trying to raise my kids and family. I eventually went to stùdy at the University of Uyo after I formed Royalty Group and relocated to Akwa Ibom State.
Now that you have mentioned Royalty. How did it happen?
From Bertola, two of us were invited for an interview at Norman Holdings. I was the preferred candidate. You know, they referred to me as the preferred candidate. So that name has been with me from way back. I have always had the grace of God in my life, and that was how I joined Norman Holdings as Investment Officer. I grew through the ranks and became the Group General Manager.
The company needed to do some expansion, and I led the team that was commissioned to come up with three areas of investment that we would like the company to dabble into.
After weeks of hard work, I made my presentation to the board. We asked the company to consider investing in hotels, water bottling, and salt.
My Chairman said, “Umo, you have done well, but I don’t think this will work. We think you should go and do some more research”.
We have been working on this thing for six months and I knew how thorough and solid our research was.
I felt really sad, especially the fact that the Board had lost confidence in my abilities. So I went to my immediate boss and we used to discuss in pidgin English, and I said, Aunty I dey go.
I told her I believed in these projects and God helping me, I will go and execute them. That was how I tendered my resignation.
At the time I took this decision, I was very much well paid.But I had made up my mind. I then decided to come back to Eket, Akwa Ibom State. When we got here, I saw an opportunity that despite Mobil now ExxonMobil being here, the town had very few hotel facilities. I made some enquiries, and that was how we started Royalty Group.
We built our first 5-room hotel facility. Our business is a story in resilience and today, we have many other facilities in other parts of the state and we are also into other businesses including water bottling.
https://thebossnewspapers.com/2023/01/07/akwa-ibom-2023-i-was-not-convicted-or-declared-wanted-pastor-umo-eno-insists/
You are reputed as someone who loves to serve. Kindly expatiate.
I am in the hospitality industry and I love serving my customers.
I would not sit and watch my staff do everything. You show leadership. If I walk into a place and things are not done right, I make it right. We are all called to serve and besides, I am a pastor and a pastor is a servant. People see it as humility for the owner to serve, but I see it as being a first among equals.
At Royalty, you called yourself Executive Governor. How did this come about?.
I had two inspirations.In those days, I used to go to Nightshift,this was a popular night club in Ikeja, Lagos. The owner of the place was Ken Calebs- Olumese. Everyone used to call him the governor. He was always on his feet, working and serving, and I really admired that.
Secondly, I always wanted to be different. Everybody was called MD, so I wanted to create my own identity, an empire where I will be in charge, so that was what propelled me to call myself Executive Governor.
How do you see your chances, especially with the opposition that characterized your emergence?
The PDP is a very formidable force in Akwa Ibom State. Virtually all the accolades the state receives today is the work of the PDP. The party is strong, but we are not resting on our oars. We campaigned vigorously and sold our vision across the 31 LGAs.
On my emergence, we had to deal with court cases. All manner of cases, some very frivolous and annoying, outright lies, but I am told it comes with the territory.
 We have overcome them, winning all the way to the Supreme Court. Like I have said, I abhor no grudges, we are going to run an all-inclusive government.
 My running mate, Senator Akon Eyakenyi and I, assure Akwa Ibom people that the future they desire for themselves and their children is possible.
We intend to run a state couched in Christian values and virtues. With the votes of our people, I promise that we are about to witness the golden years of Akwa Ibom State.

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UBA Reinforces Commitment to Rewarding Customer-Loyalty with N400m Bonus

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UBA Rewards Customer Loyalty with Over ₦400 Million Bumper Account Anniversary Bonus
…Reinforces commitment to rewarding customers for consistent savings
Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has rewarded thousands of customers with over ₦400 million in anniversary bonuses under its flagship UBA Bumper Account, reaffirming the Bank’s unwavering commitment to rewarding customer loyalty and promoting a strong savings culture.

The payout, one of the largest loyalty rewards under the Bumper Account initiative since its launch, saw qualifying customers receive anniversary bonuses directly into their accounts, demonstrating UBA’s resolve to create lasting value for customers who consistently save with the Bank.

The UBA Bumper Account is a unique savings product that rewards customers simply for maintaining and growing their savings. Every year an eligible account reaches its anniversary, customers receive a cash bonus, making disciplined saving both rewarding and beneficial over time.
Speaking on the milestone, UBA’s Head, Retail Products, Tomiwa Sotiloye, said the Bank remains committed to ensuring that customers benefit directly from their relationship with UBA.

“At UBA, we believe customer loyalty deserves meaningful recognition. Every bonus paid is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to customers who continue to trust us with their financial aspirations. Surpassing the ₦400 million milestone reflects our commitment to creating products that not only help customers save but also reward them in tangible ways. It is another demonstration that when our customers grow, we grow with them.”

He added that both new and existing customers can open a UBA Bumper Account seamlessly through https://on.ubagroup.com/bumper-tc, any any UBA branch, the UBA Mobile Banking App, by dialing *919#, or online, positioning themselves to qualify for future anniversary rewards.

Also speaking, UBA’s Group Head, Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, said the Bank’s customer-centric philosophy continues to shape its product offerings.

“The UBA Bumper Account reflects our unwavering commitment to putting customers first. We deliberately design products that reward responsible financial behaviour while delivering real value. Crediting over ₦400 million directly into customers’ accounts is not just a payout; it is evidence of our promise to make banking more rewarding and to continually appreciate the confidence our customers repose in us.”

The UBA Bumper Account remains one of the Bank’s flagship retail savings products, combining competitive savings benefits, digital convenience and attractive loyalty rewards. It forms part of UBA’s broader strategy to deepen financial inclusion by encouraging sustainable savings habits while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

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Dele Momodu Leadership Centre Hosts Media Scholar, Prof Abiodun Adeniyi

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By Anjorin Fehintola Stella

We often measure leadership by the institutions people build or the positions they occupy. Yet, during his visit to the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre, Professor Abiodun Adeniyi repeatedly returned to something less visible but perhaps more enduring; the responsibility of documenting one’s life and thoughts. He spoke as someone who understands, at a personal level, what is lost when experience is left unrecorded. His emphasis on documentation was not stylistic advice for writers. It was an argument about memory itself, about how societies retain or lose the wisdom of the people who pass through them.

Ideas disappear when they are undocumented because memory, at the collective level, is fragile and selective. A society does not remember everything that happens within it, it remembers what is written down, repeated, taught, or institutionalised. An undocumented thought, however brilliant, dies with the person who held it, or worse, drifts into vague anecdote, stripped of its original precision. This is why oral cultures, for all their richness, often struggle to transmit complex ideas across generations with fidelity. Professor Adeniyi’s point, then, was not simply about personal record-keeping. History remembers people largely through what they leave behind, not through what they intended to leave behind. Intention without artefact disappears.

When he spoke about travelling, it would be easy to reduce his words to a fondness for movement or exposure. But the deeper claim runs further than that. Travel disrupts familiarity. It exposes individuals to different ways of living, thinking, governing and imagining society. Professor Adeniyi suggested that travelling remains one of the simplest yet most profound forms of education because it broadens not only knowledge but perspective. A person confined to one environment mistakes the local for the universal. Movement across geographies forces a confrontation with alternative logics, alternative arrangements of power, family, and meaning, and that confrontation is often where genuine learning begins.

Perhaps the strongest advice he gave concerned the pursuit of a doctorate. When Aare Dele Momodu spoke of his desire to pursue a PhD, Professor Adeniyi’s response challenged a growing culture in which academic qualifications are sometimes pursued as symbols of prestige rather than vehicles of inquiry. A PhD earned for the title that follows a name produces a credential without a contribution. A PhD earned out of genuine curiosity produces new knowledge and, more importantly, sustains the kind of intellectual restlessness that defines a thinking life. Professor Adeniyi’s counsel was that one should choose a field that strikes them professionally and personally, something that connects to lived purpose rather than social signalling, because the value of advanced study lies in the questions it forces a person to keep asking long after the degree is conferred.

Professor Abiodun did not reserve his counsel for matters of scholarship alone. Turning to the younger staff in the room, Professor Adeniyi offered something closer to reassurance than instruction, that everything they are currently going through, the uncertainty, the striving, the sense of being far from where they hope to be, is a phase both he and Aare Dele Momodu have lived through themselves. It was a reminder that ambition rarely moves on a straight or visible timeline. The goals and dreams that feel distant now are not denied, only delayed, and what stands between the present moment and their fulfilment is simply time and dedication, applied without pause.

 

Underneath all these threads, travel, documentation, the meaning of scholarship, was a single, unifying idea about legacy. Legacy isn’t what people say about you. It’s what remains after you leave. This distinction matters because praise is temporary and circumstantial, shaped by mood, politics, and memory’s natural decay. What remains, however, is structural. It is the book on a shelf, the institution still running, the idea still being taught.

This is where the conversation returned, inevitably, to the Centre itself. The library. The scholars’ rooms. The conversations. The institution. Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by what he encountered, not by the scale of the buildings, but by what the buildings were designed to hold. Perhaps that is why Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by the Centre. It was never merely about architecture. It was about permanence. Buildings become legacy only when they preserve ideas.

Every visit leaves footprints. Some are physical. Others are intellectual. Professor Abiodun Adeniyi’s visit left the latter.

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Lagos Govt Sues for Calm As Flood Ravages City, Okays Dredging of 28 Channels

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The Lagos State Government has appealed for calm following persistent rainfall and flash floods across many parts of the State over the past two weeks, announcing the immediate dredging of 28 additional primary drainage channels to improve flood control.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu approved the emergency dredging intervention as part of efforts to strengthen the state’s drainage network.

The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said the recent downpours are an extreme weather event that produced an unusually large volume of rainfall within a short period, overwhelming drainage systems in some locations and causing temporary flooding in parts of Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, Gbagada, Mushin, Mafoloku and other communities.

According to him, the situation was not peculiar to Lagos; several African countries and parts of North America also experienced heavy rainfall and flooding during the same period.

Wahab, however, said Lagos presents a more complex hydrological challenge because of its extensive network of lagoons, rivers, creeks and tidal water bodies, coupled with its high rainfall intensity.

He explained that the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos Lagoon and inland waterways, especially during high tide, naturally slows the discharge of storm-water into the sea, leading to temporary flooding in low-lying areas during exceptionally heavy rainfall.

The commissioner assured residents that the government was closely monitoring drainage infrastructure, flood-prone areas and major channels across the State.

He added that emergency response agencies have been deployed to affected areas to facilitate the quick recession of floodwaters and provide necessary support to residents.

Wahab said the government would continue to invest in drainage construction, channelisation, desilting, and other flood-control infrastructure, but stressed that residents also have a responsibility to support these efforts.

He urged residents to stop dumping refuse into drains, canals and waterways, warning that blocked drainage channels and illegal reclamation of wetlands contribute significantly to flooding.

He also cautioned against building on drainage alignments and engaging in activities that could obstruct the free flow of storm-water.

The commissioner said the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall events across coastal cities is a clear indication of the impact of climate change.

“Lagos is not exempt from these realities. However, the State Government remains steadfast in its commitment to building a flood-resilient city through sustained infrastructure development, environmental enforcement and active collaboration with residents,” he said.

Wahab described flood management as a shared responsibility, urging residents to keep drainage channels free of debris and to report any activities that could obstruct storm-water flow.

He also advised motorists to avoid driving through flooded roads during heavy rainfall and urged residents, particularly those in flood-prone communities, to comply with weather advisories and safety instructions issued by relevant government agencies.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to protecting lives and property through proactive flood management measures and called for continued public cooperation in building a cleaner, safer and more resilient Lagos.

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