Former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah, has made a case for an effective succession plan in governance, noting that only continuity can guarantee sustainable development for enhanced socioeconomic development of the people.
Recalling his time as the first civilian governor of the state at the return of democracy in 1999, Attah expressed regrets that his vision for science and technology-driven system was truncated by his successors including Chief Godswill Akpabio, who changed the status of the University of Science and Technology he conceived for the state-owned university at Ikot Akpaden in Mkpat Enin local government area, to a conventional university.
Speaking at the 2023 Colloquium organised by the Uyo Book Club at Watbridge Hotel, Uyo, the state capital in honour of the elder statesman, who turned 85 on Monday, Attah bemoaned the distortion of a knowledge -based society he tried to create for the state, regretting that lack of continuity in governance stalled the vision.
According to him, if implemented as he designed, all facets of the state economy including agriculture would have been positively impacted with attendant food security, social infrastructure, human capital development and improved Internally Generated Revenues (IGRs).
He explained that he had severally impressed it on former military president, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (rtd) to help facilitate the establishment of the University of Science and Technology in the state, but regretted that all his efforts were dashed because of the resistance and rejection of the project by the people.
Besides, Attah, frowned that upon his emergence as Governor (1999 – 2007), when he eventually established the Science and Technology University, his immediate successor, Senator Akpabio, turned it to a conventional two campuses institution, thereby robbing the state of the envisaged hub for Information Communication Technology (ICT).
Also, the abandoned Ibom Science Park project, designed as a major science and technology ecosystem, with over N2 billion ICT equipment rotting away, which should have launched the state on global platform had it been completed, also agitated the mind of Attah, who stressed the need for a nexus between the old and the new regimes for sustainable development programmes.
Therefore, at 85, Attah, said he was ready to avail governments at all levels with his knowledge in leadership, stressing that “I am only out of office, not ideas.”
The chairman organising committee, Dr Udeme Nana, veteran journalist and former aide, lauded Attah’s achievements, especially in leading the war against the offshore/onshore oil dichotomy, which he noted, has brought prosperity to the Niger Delta states with the 13 percent derivation, and called on the state government to dedicate a special day as public holiday in honour of the man he described as “a visionary leader who conceived the state’s airport, deep seaport and the master plan of the new Akwa Ibom.”
In the same vein, former secretary to the state government (SSG), Dr Emmanuel Ekeuwem, and the commissioner for science and technology during the era of Attah, as governor, Prof Linus Asuquo (guest lecturer), and others extolled the leadership and mentorship qualities of the former governor, noting that his thoughts and vision for the development of the state would have signposted Akwa Ibom as the rallying point for investors, tourists and visitors, should the successive administrations sustained the vision at his exit from power.
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