Breaking: Governor Umo Eno In Court Over Stratification

Governor Umo Eno in Court over stratification. Demographics in simple definition are statistics that describe populations and their characteristics; it also means stratification of people with similar interest or concerns; sometimes broken into age, social class, race and gender.

This spread and the inability to prioritize their aspirations and concerns at any level of engagement must have necessitated the invention of words like “underserved” and “marginalization” in the English lexicon. Both alongside their synonyms are the soul of all known agitations, whether in politics, work place or society.

Harold Lasswell must have thought of the dilemma of settling between triage and preference to arrive at politics as the call of who gets what, when and how. Settling for which of the two at anytime is less injurious in the judgment call of leadership has kept Nigeria’s narrative of fair demographic balance checkered.

The debate on which comes first has seen the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, dismantling the walls that excused exclusion, to stand out as a sterling example of conscious inclusion.

When the governor during the campaigns gave his words to run an administration that will prioritize the aspiration of every Akwa Ibom indigene, not many believed it was possible. Yet like every other promise he has made, he is walking his talk to prove that governance can depart from rhetoric and selective inclusion.

For the hitherto forgotten vulnerable demographic, Fido’s sensational single “Joy is coming” should have been Governor Eno’s campaign theme song. They could not have imagined a better time to live than the ARISE Agenda era.

With several of 400 vulnerable families waking up to become owners of decent houses through the ARISE Compassionate Homes Initiative, and more families benefiting from the Free Food Programme of the Bulk Purchase Agency, it is a new season for this category of people who were once neglected.

Nigerian women have not been more politically visible and economically considered than in Eno’s Akwa Ibom. In the present Akwa Ibom, aside the state having a female Deputy Governor, five local government areas have women as their elected head.

Out of the thirty one local government councils, twenty six of them have women as deputy heads of council, while each local government area has at least four female councillors. Whether it is elective or appointive position, it has been an impressive mix of women in high profile offices.

There are numerous programmes of the administration that women have been given glaring advantage; this includes the Enterprise Accelerator Programme of Ibom-LED where 400 female youths have been trained and profiled for business support grants of 750,000 Naira each.

The ARISE Agenda’s existential benefits to young people have remained expansive on an array of fronts; from enterprise development and empowerment to political inclusion, it has remained a tale of triumph for the youth demographic.

Students have been paid bursary, given scholarships, as well as other forms of support. Young entrepreneurs are trained by Ibom-LED and empowered to stay in business.

The big one for young people is the opportunity given those that are unemployed to earn some support grants through a portal that employers in the private sector can also leverage on to hire.

While the world sustains its fast paced survival trajectory, people with various disabilities have continued to complain about the unfortunate circumstance of being left behind.

With Governor Eno, things for people in the disability spectrum had long taken a lucky twist with some of them appointed into sensitive positions as permanent secretary and personal aides.

Additionally, there is the Governor’s thoughtful education grant of 100 million Naira for those in tertiary institutions, not to forget other medical and economic interventions.

Elderly citizens have been treated in a manner that has made transiting from healthy adulthood to fragile agedness a pleasant experience. Governor Eno has approached and handled their welfare with utmost attention and priority.

There is a free health insurance scheme for the elderly, while an elderly citizens centre, where they can indulge in recreational activities and reminisce fondly on old times is in the works. Payment of pensions and gratuities to retirees is happening in a manner never experienced in our governance history.

Stimulating the economy has known no better past. Civil servants have continued to wake into thoughtful gestures of the government, including the thirteenth month salary dubbed ‘Enomber’, wardrobe allowance for teachers, wage awards among other incentives.

Beyond those in the government employ, the 2 billion naira grant to traders and similar gestures to Arewa, Yoruba, Igbo and Niger Delta business communities in the state are both profound and bold imprints of our hospitable nature.

Added to his strides at resuscitating weaning prospects of the state’s blue economy, Akwa Ibom is positioned on all flanks to lead a sustainable economic renaissance.

Umo Eno

Despite achieving these much, it has remained in the thought of many how a government is able to sustain a steady flow of developmental projects across every local government area. The governor is dismantling all known barriers of exclusion and discontinuity in government by ensuring that viable projects he inherited from previous administrations are revived in the interest of the state and for the benefit of the people.

Just when the people thought so much have been achieved, Governor Eno in deepening the Akwa Ibom State’s developmental narratives is lining up dozens of life-touching projects for commencement before mid year.

With a saturated mix of people in the formal to informal sector; including businessmen, politicians, industry experts, budding entrepreneurs, and the unemployed Akwa Ibomites, there is a consensus that points to Governor Umo Eno as a leader at home with the aspirations of people in every rung of the socioeconomic construct.

The series of recognitions and Awards in pleasant torrents have furthered the justification that the people knew what they wanted in their quest for a governor who would understand their plights, and work honestly towards solving their problems.