Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno has read riot act to local government chairmen across the 31 councils, saying, his administration would not hesitate to withdraw development projects earmarked for such areas if the restive youth resort to confronting contractors with frivolous demands for compensation.
Besides, he charged council bosses to avail government of free lands for such development schemes, assuring that his administration was ready to spread projects to the grassroots in line with the rural development drive of his “Arise Agenda”, to reduce rural-urban migration.
Addressing community dwellers in his Ikot Ekpene Udo village, in Nsit Ubium local government area, Pastor Eno, made it clear that any deliberately orchestrated encumbrance to the implementation of the policies and programmes of the current government would not be tolerated.
“As local government chairmen, you must provide lands for the state government to bring development projects. If we encounter any resistance, of course, we will not waste time to withdraw from such communities,” the governor warned.
Eno, who assured that it would no longer be business as usual in the current dispensation, charged stakeholders and community leaders to ensure that government projects are properly safeguarded.
The government, he said, was committed to strengthening grassroots development, stressing that government jobs were too limited to accommodate everybody, hence the new administration’s aggressive rural development schemes.
He, therefore, urged feuding communities in Eastern Obolo, Ibeno, Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin, Mbo and other councils to cease fire as courts decide on the subject matter of the proper mapping and gazetting of the state boundaries that gave rise to communal violence in the affected areas.
