BEING MY SPEECH DURING THE COMBINED 29th AND 30TH CONVOCATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF UYO-NOVEMBER 9, 2024

PROTOCOL

The Power of Perseverance and the Bright Lines of Success

1. I stand here this morning, wearing two caps and they represent two fundamentally important ideals: The power of perseverance, faith and hope and the uplifting feeling that heralds the successful outcome of a passionate dedication to hardwork and infinite belief in God as the Author and Finisher of our desires and needs.

2. Today, I join you as one of the graduands, with a degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Political Science with special concentrations in Public Administration which, is a testament to perseverance and faith in the unending and unchangeable possibilities that exist if you believe .

3. I am also standing here in another capacity as the Fifth democratically elected Governor of this wonderful State. This cap speaks also speaks to the immutable designs of the Almighty God to perfect all that He has destined for everyone- again if you believe!

4. Let me first and foremost thank the Visitor of this great citadel of learning, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, for his passionate dedication in growing our economy and repositioning our nation as the dominant economic powerhouse in Africa. The path to getting us to that destination may be rough and hard as we are currently experiencing, but if we give him our support and prayers, we will surely get there.

5. Permit me to also express our deepest appreciation to the Honourable Minster of Education, Dr. Murufu Olatunji Alausa, the Chancellor of this University, the Emir Hadejia, His Highness, Alhaji Adamu Maje, CON, the Pro Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council , Prof. Zubairu Abdallah, the Management and Staff led by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Nyaudoh Nadeyo, the Senate , for working hard to make the University of Uyo, one of the most sought- after universities in the nation, with stellar academic record and an alumni list that comprises some of the most successful people spread across professions.

6.Today, I am here as one of your ambassadors and I want to commend and thank my academic Supervisor, Professor Onouha, for his patience and encouragement and for working through my tight schedule to get me to this point.

7. I dedicate today’s huge accomplishment to my dear wife and First Lady of our State, Pastor (Mrs.) Patience Umo Eno, who, sadly had passed on a little over a month ago. She was my cheer-leader, and had encouraged me to pursue this programme even when my schedule first as the Chairman of the Royalty Group, a Member of the State Executive Council, to later running a grueling campaign schedule as the PDP Candidate for Governor, and now as the elected Governor of this State, made the pursuit of this program quite daunting.

8.I know she is immensely proud of this accomplishment and it would have been quite fulfilling to have her seat here amongst us, but we can’t question God. Let me also thank my dear children for standing by me, and encouraging me to get this done. To those who took political gimmickry to morally depraved levels, I thank them for firing my spirit to get this done. As a Pastor, I have forgiven them all!

9.My life has been one of sheer grace and faith in the immutable plans of God and a willingness to work hard to bring to fruition all that He has embedded in me.

10.From a challenging life growing up after I lost my father, to keeping my gaze on the bright lines of what the future may portend, to becoming an entrepreneur with the third largest wage bill after the State Government and ExxonMobil, and now the Governor of this blessed State, I have every reason to be grateful to God. But it didn’t come easy, it came with hard work, honesty, transparency and character traits that inspire and bring people whom God had placed as one’s destiny helpers to trust you and provide the building blocks for you to climb the ladder of success.

11.My background, has shaped my governance style-placing the people at the center of all that we do, which is essentially what the Arise Agenda is all about. Because I know how it feels to go to bed hungry and not knowing where the next meal will come, that is why we are providing free food vouchers as a temporary intervention to help the most vulnerable amongst us, while urging them to return to the farms.

15.Because I have seen people living in the most dilapidated of places they called homes, we are now building compassionate homes for the most vulnerable. Because I have seen our elderly ones die of easily preventable diseases, that’s why we are constructing world class primary health care centers all over the State, complete with enrollment of our public servants free of charge into our State Health Insurance scheme and 50 thousand naira paid monthly to the elders through our Arise Elder Care initiative. We have introduced dedicated Ambulance service to take care of medical emergencies and the free medical outreach programmes we have undertaken since we came in.

16.Because I recognize the power of education, which is the reason I am where I am today , we have kept faith with the free and compulsory education in our State, with bursary increased from 10 to 20 thousand for students studying general courses and from 10-30 thousand naira for those studying professional courses such as law, engineering, medicine, agriculture, Information Technology etc. We are also paying 250 thousands to undergraduate students living with disabilities and 300 thousand for those studying professional courses. This is drawn from the 100 million educational grant for people living with disabilities we have instituted. We are building world -class model primary schools because the foundation for academic excellence starts from the primary school level.

17.We are doing all these while also embarking on big item projects such as road construction and the completion of those we had inherited, the purchase of two brand new CRJ 900 Bombardier Aircraft, together with two Airbus A200-300 Series we had earlier received. The Arise Park, which upon completion will be a testament to vision and foresight, the 18-Storey Ibom Towers whose ground- breaking we had performed a little nearly two weeks ago, the ferries we are building with the Nigerian Navy for inter-State transportation and the rehabilitation work at Oron Jetty and of course the provision of water in Ini Local Government Area, our investment in security and rural development. These are projects that put the people at the front and centre of our engagements.

18. But in all of these, I believe squarely in power of Small and Medium Enterprises as the engine of economic growth, especially with the middle class, which is quite instructive in the sense that I picked my thesis topic :GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE SECTOR DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN AKWA IBOM STATE while i was still in the private sector. Today, God has placed me in the position as Governor, to implement some of the recommendations in the thesis and that explains why we have been deeply intentional in supporting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), since I became the Governor.

19.Part of the first acts I performed upon my inauguration was the establishment of Ibom Leadership and Entrepreneurial Development Centre (IBOM-LED) with the mandate to train and support Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs. Today, through the Entrepreneurial Accelerator Programme, (EAP) over 2 thousand young and budding entrepreneurs have been trained and given 500 thousand grant each as well as 250 thousand naira training fees. Majority of the beneficiaries, I am happy to report have moved on to setting up their businesses and are thriving. We have also established a shoe and fashion hubs within the premises of IBOM-LED and the shoes and uniforms for ours pupils and officers and men of Ibom Community Watch are currently using are made there.

20.Because we believe in growing the middle class, my administration was able to bring the Bank of Industry (BoI) for the first time to our State, to help in this process. We realized that most of our Small and Medium Entrepreneurs were borrowing at such exorbitant rates that making profit was almost impossible, we decided to intervene. We currently have a Memorandum of Understanding (Mou) with the Bank of Industry to provide a matching fund of 2 billion naira which they will lend to our budding entrepreneurs at single digits. We recently converted the 2 billion naira loan to farmers in our State to grants.

21.Because one of the fastest ways of growing SMEs is the elimination of multiple taxations we have decided to convert our existing moribund assets to income generating enterprises to enhance our Internally Generating Income (IGR) capabilities. The 18-Story Ibom Tower in Lagos and the planned 4-Star hotel in Abuja are the starting points in this regard. We hope to recover other assets and turn them into productive uses,

22.We are also working on power because without regular or constant supply of electricity, the ability of small scale entrepreneurs to turn a profit becomes hugely challenging. We have conducted an audit on Ibom Power Plant, and soon, we will reposition that critical infrastructure to provide the service we have invested so much resources for it to execute. We do not just talk the talk as far as SME’s are concerned, we are equally walking the talk.

23.This degree, therefore, which again represents hard work and my faith in the power of the Small and Medium Enterprises to ignite economic growth and prosperity especially with the middle class will further strengthen me to keep on giving the best of me in the service of our State and our dear people.

24.Thank you for making this a reality and congratulations to all other graduands. You should be very proud of yourselves just as ! am. God bless us all