Governor of Akwa Ibom State Udom Emmanuel, yesterday, took time off his state-wide Christmas broadcast to enumerate his achievements in the last seven years and warned desperate political leaders against stoking the embers of violence to destroy his legacy of development in the state.
Apparently envisaging politically-induced violence that could snowball into widespread killings and destruction of properties during the transition period, the governor urged political stakeholders to be in the vanguard of sustaining the existing peace.
He said, “I call on our political class and stakeholders to conduct themselves during this period of transition with utmost decency and circumspection. Leadership demands of us a certain display of wisdom and tact. Leaders, don’t burn down the homes they had built, leaders don’t ignite violence through the words of their mouth.
“Leaders don’t engage in peddling falsehood and misinformation, neither do they deploy violence as a means of getting elected into political offices.
Leaders do not attack and insult the very institution and the symbol they aspire to represent. Leaders should and must understand that the cords of our unity, of brotherhood and of our common patrimony remain enduring and rock-solid, and that political foes you know today may be allies tomorrow.
“As we get ready to elect our new set of leaders, I urge our people to know that, that same God who granted us a state, 35 years ago, with dusty streets and thatched roofed houses sandwiched between a number of concrete structures, a state where the aspiration of some of our people was to go to Lagos and elsewhere and be domestic workers and gatekeepers, has done supreme things in our lives. Our narratives have changed, and it can only get better.”
Noting that the once unattractive and largely civil service state has over the years been transformed into a mega economy with industrialized status, Emmanuel stressed the need for sustainable development through holistic action by all leaders and stakeholders in the state.
“Today, that once-dusty state has become the destination of choice for most Nigerians and others across the world; that state today, boasts of the best road network of any sub national in the nation, that state has the only commercially viable and most preferred airline in the country, the first of such, owned by a sub national, Ibom Air. That state has over 25 fully functional industries that have employed thousands of our people; that state today ranks amongst the best in the nation,” he stressed.
He therefore, charged the people to shun hate politics so that “we can protect these achievements, leverage on them and continue the building blocks, rather than destroy them.”
