By Harris Emanuel
UYO – Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Eno Umoh, says he’d rather serve a useful one term in office than a non impactful two terms.
The oil rich state Governor was teaching to threatsby some disgruntled stalwarts of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the State who vowed that they would not support him for a second term in office because he is tightfisted..
“I will rather serve a single term of four years laced with mouth watering achievements than serve for eight years with nothing to show for it.” Governor Umoh emphasized.
The Governor was speaking over the weekend at a press conference forming part of the activities to commemorate the 36th anniversary of the creation of the State christened; the ‘Land of Promise.’
Governor Eno maintained that he would rather invest on lives changing projects and programmes for the teeming 7.9 million people than allow a few influential stakeholders to hold him captive.
He promised to invest massively on infrastructures with particular emphasis on rural development, adding that the government working in tandem with the local government chairmen has acquired 50 hectares of land in each local government area for agricultural purposes.
His words: “We are trying to ensure that my recurrent expenditure does not run at par with my capital expenditure. Whatever we save is to be put back in the rural areas. Every N500 million I save would give me a school, would give me a hospital.
“I prefer a good first term than a useless two-terms. It is only when you account for four years well, that you would be asked to go again.
“I’ll rather put money in rural communities. My job is to ensure that the 7.9m people are satisfied. I discovered that almost everybody is waiting on government.
“The challenge before us is to maintain the existing infrastructure. We lack maintenance culture. That is why we seek to establish an asset management agency to help in maintenance of our assets. We build new ones when we have to.
“We are working with the 31 Local Government chairmen on agricultural development. We will be using not less than 50 hectares of land per Local Government Area for farming.
“I am not perfect, but i promise that I will not deliberately launch this state into something we would regret. We will do our best.”
He , however applauded President Bola Ahmed Tinubuu for making him part of his delegation to the 78th UN General Assembly meeting in New York, describing the outing as very educative and rewarding.
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