Governor Udom Emmanuel (2nd from right), his wife, Mrs. Martha Emmanuel,(left), Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources, Pastor Umo Eno and his wife, Mrs. Patience, during the 3-in-1 thanksgiving of Pastor Umo Eno.
By Emmanuel Aziken
It was a thanksgiving for one of his commissioners, but Governor Udom Emmanuel used it as a platform to open up on the emotional burden he has silently carried as governor of Akwa Ibom State.
Pastor Umo Eno, the Akwa Ibom commissioner for lands and water resources, who had gathered the high and low to a 3-in-1 thanksgiving last Saturday, September 25, had lamented the taunts and blackmail from diverse quarters since his appointment to the Emmanuel cabinet at the beginning of the year.
Governor Emmanuel who graced the ceremony with his wife, Dr. Mrs. Martha Udom Emmanuel and most of the state cabinet had in response, told the gathering that the attacks Eno had received were only a fraction of what he as governor has suffered.
Frowning at the level of blackmail directed against public office holders, Governor Emmanuel speaking to the guests including national and state clergy led by the national president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Dr. Supo Ayokunle, said:
“I know I have tried to forget so many as a governor all those people who wronged me,” Governor Emmanuel said.
“You know the Commissioner was trying to complain about the things they write, if they don’t write what do you think they will do?
“Your own is to keep focus and do what you are supposed to do. As long as you are in the position of leadership, you must be blackmailed, misunderstood, misquoted and misconstrued’’, the Governor noted.
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Governor Emmanuel undoubtedly spoke from his experience as governor. In six years as governor, Mr. Emmanuel has successfully altered the narrative in Akwa Ibom State with cultism which was once a factor for political promotion in the state now in flight. Even more, financial obscenity and other acts of squandermania that were once the hallmark of governance in Akwa Ibom have taken a back seat.
It was as such not unexpected that given the new narrative he has given to governance in the state that he has been the subject of repeated attacks from far and near by those displaced by the new way of doing things in Akwa Ibom.
Pastor Eno who was inaugurated as commissioner for lands and water resources like other commissioners in the Emmanuel cabinet had in line with his vision focused on delivering on the vision of the governor.
As commissioner of lands, Pastor Eno had seen to the governor’s order of lifting the value of land as a useable collateral to harness capital to bolster Small and Medium Enterprises in the state. it is a new horizon that is opening a fresh flow of capital into the state.
Even more, Eno who is also the executive director of Directorate of Agric Investments is also overseeing the Akwa Ibom Government’s programme to energise the capacity of small scale farmers. The agency is working on a programme to permanently crash the price of garri in the state through an off-taker scheme and construction of garri processing plants that will receive the cassava planted by farmers in the state.
Willy-nilly, the efforts of Pastor Eno may have apparently stirred the disapproval of some in society who had been beneficiaries of the past system of graft who had gone overboard in their attacks. However, the reassuring words of Governor Emmanuel to Pastor Eno and his other commissioners not to be overwhelmed by blackmail may have been reassuring.
Besides thanking God for the appointment as a commissioner, the 3-in-1 thanksgiving was also an opportunity for Eno to remember the death of his mother a year ago. The third prism of the thanksgiving was the 35th anniversary of his marriage to his wife, Patience.
The 35th marriage anniversary was especially significant as Governor Emmanuel pointed out last Saturday.
According to him, Mrs. Eno was almost gone at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic as he for the first time publicly opened up to Pastor Eno that he, governor, hid the truth about his wife to him.
“When I was called and the doctors told me, I didn’t want to frighten you, (speaking to Pastor Eno), the doctors said that the oxygen saturation level of this woman (Mrs. Patience Eno), ‘sir even if we put her in a ventilator we can only keep praying,’ but thank God, prayers were raised and God helped and today, you can celebrate 35 years of marriage with your wife because she is alive,” Governor Emmanuel said to smiles from the couple.
Directly responding to mutters in some quarters that the commissioner used his position as a senior member of the clergy in Akwa Ibom State to lobby him for a job, Governor Emmanuel said:
“I am standing on the pulpit to say that Pastor Eno has never lobbied me for any office ever in this life.
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“This is one man, we invited him only once to our retreat and all exco members will give you exactly the same report, he impressed everybody the way he made his presentation and we told him help us handle Agric Investments and absolutely he has never called me that he wanted anything in this life. So, please let not people say so because that is not true.”
Speaking earlier, the guest minister, Rev. Simeon Afolabi who culled his text from Psalms 103: 1-5 reminded Christians that they ought to reflect on God’s faithfulness upon their lives and show gratitude for His mercies rather than remember unpleasant things which they ought to bury in the past.
Reflecting on God’s mercies upon him and his family, Pastor Umo Eno and wife Pastor Patience Eno, expressed gratitude to God on the one year remembrance of his mother, Late Deaconess Eka Eno, who he said lived a fulfilled life as a Christian.
With emotion in his voice, he also thanked God for his appointment just as he decried the backbiting associated with his activities in fulfilling the assignments from the governor.
On his 35th marriage anniversary, Eno besides thanking God for his wife’s survival last year and also thanking the governor and his wife for the support they played, also threw anecdotes as he observed that his wife chose him above two others who were apparently more sophisticated and wealthy. But with an eye beyond the ordinary, he said that she looked up with the eyes of faith and chose him. That choice has paid off with children, many grandchildren.
Beyond the support of wife, the 3-in-1 thanksgiving by Pastor and Mrs. Eno showed the degree of unity that Governor Emmanuel has been able to forge in his cabinet as nearly all commissioners were present and supportive of one of their own.
In the past, such an occasion would have been shadowed with acrimony with cabinet members working at cross purposes to spoil the joy of one of their own. However, in this case, the commissioners and senior government officials came and mostly wore white perhaps to show the excellence that Governor Emmanuel is pursing.
