Governor Umo Eno’s bottom-to-top leadership approach since the inception of his administration in May 2023 has singled him out as a compassionate leader who ensures that the vulnerable have the first piece of the cake before others.
The act of displaying generosity, compassion and humility by Governor Umo Eno to Akwa Ibom people, especially the downtrodden, is not a sudden attribute, but has been indelible in the life of the Governor long before he ventured into state politics.
Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Research and Documentation, Dr. Essien Ndueso in a live television programmme in Uyo, recalled that even before the Governor became first appointed into government, he had always been reaching out to the less privileged, an affirmation that he has always been a giver.
That generosity was the reason he directed that all gifts and goodwill to him on his landmark 60th birthday, be channeled to orphanages, vulnerable and downtrodden in the society.
“This resulted in an unprecedented unleashing of love by individuals and groups to less privileged people across the entire State.
“There’s a programme that some youths organize, known as Save Our Youths Initiative, it’s a programme that budding entrepreneurs would gather, put out their business plans and how they hope to make it.
“All of them would sell their products, and in different categories, winners would emerge.
“Pastor Umo Eno was one of those who sponsored that programme yearly and also offered incentives to those people to go expand on their businesses, same with his Ibom Ignite project,” he added.
He commended the Governor for his exhibition of natural love and humility before and after he became Governor, which he said is glaring for all to see.
“Humility fits him like a second skin. Here is a Governor, even before he was a commissioner, and then he became a commissioner, it’s the same humility we all see in him.
“And then as the Governor, he is still that humble Pastor Umo Eno that we all knew back then in Eket” he noted.
The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Research and Documentation, lauded Pastor Umo Eno for his compassionate leadership initiatives that have touched the lives of many Akwa Ibomites, especially at the grassroots.
“Within this period, we have had the homes for the vulnerable built by the Governor.
“He is planning to build four hundred and so far, thirty are at varying stages of completion.
“And then we have had the free food for the needy made available through the Bulk Purchase Agency that he also created.
“So we have people who don’t have means of getting food for themselves – just as we have in advanced societies, we’re also having to take care of the Akwa Ibom people.
“Akwa Ibom State has recorded a first such that other States of Nigeria are now seeing how they can come and emulate.
“Some of them have asked the model we are using in the state to reach out to the less privileged across all of the nooks and crannies of the state.”
Dr. Ndueso also lauded the massive infrastructural developments of the Governor done through good road networks.
He said the Governor’s actions have since silenced the propaganda about the Governor not being a giver or a politician, saying that the Governor has shown that he is a compassionate person.
He also recounted the Governor’s last major speech before the 2023 elections where he said, “I am the only person that has come to this election without any political baggage.
“I don’t have any grudge against anybody and I am not here to settle political scores because I am of the reconciliation ministry. I will continue championing peace from where Deacon Udom Emmanuel stops, to further unite the state”, he had said.
“The Governor wants all hands on deck to build the State, irrespective of party affiliation, because at the end of the Governor’s administration, people are going to ask him what he did for the Akwa Ibom people and not how many political battles he won.”
The senior aide to the Governor said the magnanimity of Pastor Eno as Governor is also witnessed in the ARISE initiative for the Elderly, where elderly people across the State are selected and given fifty thousand Naira to senior citizens of the State through his ARISE Initiative for the elderly.
“This Governor is a Governor that does not just sit down in an office, folds his sleeves and sends people on an errand. He also goes out himself to check whether they are carrying out the assignment in exactly the way he had envisaged.
“He wants the benefits to trickle down to everyone, irrespective of political party. So that shows you that he is not doing this thing for politics. And he said it that when he is giving out these incentives to people, he is not giving it out to PDP people but to Akwa Ibom people.“
