During the 2015 election campaign, Governor Udom Emmanuel had industrialization of Akwa Ibom state, as part of his campaign manifesto and his selling point. In a score card issued after two years in governance, the Commissioner for information in the state, a corporate brand guru in Nigerian banking sector, Mr. Charles Udoh shared with Akanimo Kufre the achievements of his boss, his ingenuity and the rewarding benefits Akwa Ibomites will be enjoying for long.
Though, the administration’s industrialization strides often criticised by opposition as outrageous ground breaking ceremonies and that the administration took friends and foes along syringe, coconut, pencil and toothpick sites for commissioning, the Commissioner extensively reel out the state’s milestones under current administration. Were these projects worth the claims? Udoh shared his enthusiasm from his office at Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat in Uyo.
Sir, what is the new focus of your ministry, as we have noticed some rebranding in name; Ministry of Information and Strategy as against Ministry of Information?
It is not about having new focus because ministry of information by its role, ministerial responsibility is not just about being the mouth piece of the government, it is also about crafting and deploying reorientation programs which are aimed at aligning the people of the state with the thinking of government, aligning people of the state with government projections, plans, initiative and so everybody could be on the same line. The ministry has also been given an additional responsibility which is the strategy beat of it. The idea is that increasingly the revenue stream of the state is thinning out because we all know that our revenue comes from one source and also the mindset of Akwa Ibom people is still largely skewed towards government dependency. And when you have that kind of scenario it means that the revenue of the state which is at the centre diminishes it is going to have adverse effect on the economy of the state and so government new focus is to drive people away from government related businesses towards private owned enterprises , entrepreneurship, towards agriculture. Now when that happens a lot of people will be able to empower others to stand on their feet and not depend on government sources for funds, contract and all that. More so that takes a bit of time because you realise for so long akwa ibom state has been predominantly a civil servant state where every young man, young woman who graduates from school will want to become a civil servant or some sort. But that is not the future of the world today, the future of the world today is entrepreneurship, be on their own and create jobs. And then this is also paramount because one of His Excellency’s campaign promises were hinged on the 5 point agenda which is, Job Creation,  Wealth Creation, Poverty Alleviation, Economic Inclusion, Infrastructure consolidation and Expansion. Now everything that government is doing is geared towards the realisation of the five point agenda. So our ministry is crucial because we need to gate crash into people’s mind to let them understand what government is thinking and we strategically adopting a system whereby we first seek to inform people about in-depth activities of government, we believe that if the people are fully involve that will create a level of engagement in some interaction between the people and government. And that means you can get them to participate in the spirit of governance, the people are government so if everybody participate in governance it means that a lot more things is going to happen faster. That is why if a government wants to build new road and people blocking it with all kinds of flimsy excuses forgetting that when this road is built, this road is going to bring development to your neighbourhood, it is going to bring development to your community. So with a new thinking, a new way of life, new way of thinking, these will become issues of the past.
Let me also clearly add that it is not going to happen overnight because it has to do with mindset of the people, it has to do with perception. It will take a continuous effort to drive the message home in a consistent manner. If we can do that then we are on the right track of getting result. Not just consistent but ruthlessly consistent in doing this.
Overtime, the youths of akwa ibom had depended so much economically from ‘Barrack road end’, how would you rate the response of youths in terms of income generation through agriculture? Â
I think so far the response is interesting, a few weeks ago I took a team of journalists on a tour of major government farms, and what we saw was so gratifying  and the response of people of akwa ibom state is also gratifying. People are beginning to see the rationale in doing that. I always tell people look, my grand mum never use to buy pepper, water leaves, garri or palm oil. My grandmother use to make her own palm oil. But today your wife, my wife our sisters are buying all those things and all those things have added to the price increase and people have said how do we bring down the price of all these food? You cannot bring down the price by fiat, it cannot be done like federal government use to do before with price control board. You and I know the history of Price Control Board of yester-years. But the reality is that His Excellency, Udom Emmanuel is trying to use the laws of demand and supply to ensure that we bring prices to a normal level. How do you do that? Simple law of demand and supply says that, ‘when supply exceeds demand, prices will go down’. So by encouraging everybody to go back to farm, if people turn that flower garden in their compounds to farm lands plant pepper, plant tomatoes and all that it means that in less than no time we are going to have those items flooding the market. Remember sometimes last year, government distributed cassava stem for planting, the idea is that people can begin to make garri from it. Once we can make our own garri, you make yours and I make mine, the man in the market will be forced to bring down his price because the only guy who will be depending on his garri will be those who need more for commercial uses. For those who need for domestic use will not patronize him anymore. So automatically, prices of food stuffs will come down and that will have a ripple effect on other sectors of the economy in the state.
What do you tell those asking question if these farms are real?
I took a team of about 30 journalists, print, cameramen, online, tv stations, radio stations, bloggers, online marketers, all of them to the sites. If people still doubt that then I don’t know what they want to do? They can physically go visit those sites, they are in Akwa Ibom state and everybody knows their location. The reports clearly identify that these farms are here and there, so people should go check it out. I also tell people that when you are relating with people, they have antecedent, they have reputation, his Excellency has a reputation of a God fearing man, a man with clear intention, a man that is transparent. So I wonder why people still want to doubt him. He is one governor in my opinion and opinion of many that has not given us any occasion to doubt him. This is a governor that, in few months of his assumption of office cleared the backlog of pensions of civil servants. That shows his intentions, clarity of purpose.
If these ‘doubting Thomases’ are wrong, how soon do we expect these agricultural produce in the market?
Well, how soon depends on the response and cooperation of the people of Akwa Ibom state. If you have a farmland, I have a farmland, and we flood the market with that produce in no time that will happen. For me to sit down here and say that will happen in one month, two weeks that is not feasible because in farming it is not a quick fix. Farming has a maturing period. So when you plant a seed today it takes some time to mature. But I really believe that in the next one or two years we will see massive difference in the effort we have made. Today we can proudly say tomatoes can thrive  in Akwa Ibom state, today we can proudly say onions can thrive in Akwa Ibom state and all other kinds of farm products. Don’t also forget the fact that government is also committed to the coconut project. In other parts of the world, people see coconut oil as alternative to crude oil, people see coconut oil as a source of huge revenue intake as a result of the advantages and multiple use of coconut oil. And the fact that it does not cost so much to build a coconut refinery like it cost to build an oil refinery, so in Akwa Ibom the government has said look let us set a site for 2 million coconut plantation which is ongoing and once the coconut tree begins to mature government will set machinery to build a coconut refinery. That is a project that will generate huge revenue for Akwa Ibom state. In another year or two we will get to a point where the dependence on crude oil revenue will become a secondary source of income.
Apart from these agriculture related ventures Udom’s administration deserves credit for attempting to move Akwa Ibom beyond a ‘civil service’ state. Which areas do you have good stories and what are the challenges in the industrialisation process?
Well, let me say that industrialization on its own is something that needs to be carefully planned. If you want to set up an industry like every other businesses, there are several hurdles to scale even to start the industry not to talk about getting to production level. Some of these machineries are controlled from the top, by top I mean from Abuja. You also realize that creates its own obstacles. So what did our government decided to do? His Excellency has decided that rather than focus on those white elephant projects that will take billions and many years to complete why don’t we pick the low hanging fruits. His Excellency looked at the Nigerian economy and said ‘look where are the gaps, where are these things that are in high consumption that we do not have factories for it and we have raw materials?’ One of those things that readily came to mind was the fact that Akwa Ibom state is rich in bamboo, we have lots of bamboo, our mud houses are built with bamboo for re-enforcement and Udom said look instead of wasting these bamboos let us look more. Today Nigeria imports toothpick, today there is no pencil factory in Nigeria and what is the basic raw material for these things? It is bamboo. And also if you look at the fact that the machine we require in making toothpick and pencils are machines you can easily fabricate locally. It doesn’t require huge foreign exchange to acquire or fabricate these machines and government decided look we have a ready market for these pencils and toothpicks. We have ready raw materials why don’t we start a toothpick factory? And that gave rise to the toothpick and pencil factory. Despite that people have said why are we doing toothpick and the reality is that the factory can employ up to 100 people directly not to talk of the distributors, or indirect employment of that factory. It is also gratifying to note here that shortly after we rolled out our first pencils we went to town with that story, one of the ministers of the federal republic had a press conference where he outlined federal government plans to start consultation with agencies like PRODA and others with a view to see how they can begin to build pencil factory in Nigeria. That will be in 2018 and hoping that two years from 2018, that is 2020 the factory will start producing pencils. I quickly jumped up and say if Nigeria is thinking of producing pencils in 2020 as a country Gov. Udom must be a genius because he is already producing pencils in Akwa Ibom in 2017. This means that we are light years ahead of Nigeria! And that clearly outline the fact that this government has a clear sense of purpose, this government is about creativity and managing of resources. How well do you manage your resources to get the best? I keep telling people we are a time where there is economic recession and the recession means that you must be very skilled in how you manage the little resources. Today Akwa Ibom is one of the few states in Nigeria that pays salary regularly despite the fact that our earnings from the federation account do not come on time and even when it comes, it comes in trickles and today Akwa Ibom  is one the few states in Nigeria where basic education is free from primary to secondary school and above all the government of Akwa Ibom state despite the little and lean resources still pays the WAEC fees of every Akwa Ibom child who is qualified to take WAEC at least ones. Today Akwa Ibom state is one of the few states in Nigeria that medical services are free for children under the ages of five, for pregnant women and for the elderly. Now those are three key sectors that government has pumped in resources to ensure that the goal of poverty allegation is being attained.
Uyo, the capital do not have a secondary health care facility, I want you to highlight what the government plans is towards giving Uyo a secondary health care facilities and where also are the primary facilities that this free medical services can be received?
Well for every government owned medical institution those things are free. Talking about Uyo the government of His Excellency, Gov. Udom Emmanuel is just on its halfway mark, his first term and so if you have to rate the performance of this government at halfway mark based on the promises he made, I think this government has scored exceedingly well and to lend credence to that is the recent Leadership Newspaper award where our governor was pick as the Governor of the Year and that award is also significant because Leadership Newspaper is not a south- south newspaper   on political alliances , leadership is not aligned to the governing party of Akwa Ibom state by any standard and so for me and for us in Akwa Ibom state we should be excited that somebody somewhere has seen the good deeds of our governor and decided to reward and recognise him. I tell you every Akwa Ibom person who at the venue for the award ceremony left that place very proud and every Akwa Ibom should be happy that we have a governor like that
There is this dream of making Akwa Ibom state the oil and gas hub and this could be achieve through the relocation of ExxonMobil headquarters down to Akwa Ibom state. What is the state government doing to achieve this aspiration and the follow up action on recent promises of the acting president?
Well, let me say that Akwa Ibom state has over the years given ExxonMobil all the necessary support any host in community can give an oil company. In the era of pipeline vandalism, I think the rate of pipe line vandalization in Akwa Ibom state was almost below zero, the era of kidnapping and adoption, I can’t remember how many times there were stories of kidnapping and adoption in Akwa Ibom state. That clearly paints a scenario of a very safe and security conscious state and for any company to thrive especially the oil companies, safety and security is essential. Let me also add that very soon the governor will commission the Eket/ Ibeno road and that is the road that leads to Ibeno where ExxonMobil passes through to dig the oil. Ordinarily, that road should have been built and constructed by ExxonMobil or federal government. Now federal government didn’t do that and ExxonMobil didn’t do that. The government of Akwa Ibom state have been magnanimous to say that we want development for our people, we want an enabling environment for industries to thrive in Akwa Ibom state and the government has embark on the construction of that road.  We also realise that in Akwa Ibom state today you can’t point to any federal government project that is going on or that exists in Akwa Ibom state, no good road, nothing. If you Akwa Ibom state for instance we are surrounded by neighbouring states and all the roads linking to states are federal government roads. Those roads are all in the state of disrepair. So the issue of ExxonMobil relocating to Akwa Ibom, like the vice president said, is beyond just Akwa Ibom state, it’s a federal government thing, and that federal government has to take the bull by the horn. It is public knowledge the vice president has directed the Minister of State for Petroleum to commence the discussions with the oil companies with a view to locating them to their primary production areas. So we strongly believe that the voice of reasoning will prevail and people in the Niger Delta will be upheld because it’s been an ongoing discussion that we need them to come back here because if we look at the amount of tax ExxonMobil for instance is paying to Lagos state if those taxes where to be paid to Akwa Ibom state you will know how that will come to confines of Akwa Ibom state and how that could help us. The number of estates that ExxonMobil own in Lagos if there were built in Akwa Ibom it will change the face of Akwa Ibom state drastically. So we strongly believe and hope and pray fervently that federal government will keep his promise and ensure that this oil companies relocate their head offices to their primary host communities.
We have noticed strong acceptance of the youths to this government of governor Udom Emmanuel, what other plans is the government having to improve youth employment beyond what we have on ground?
Well, like I said earlier, it is not by flooding the civil service with workers, it is about empowering people to become entrepreneurs, it is about empowering people to think of how to do other businesses. For instance the AKEES, so far over four thousand youths have been trained in various vocational and economic skills. The idea is to empower them to be able to stand on their own. About now there are trainings on digital marketing. Now the world is going digital, half the world lives online today and then the reality is that eighty percent of the youths in Akwa Ibom state are online, 80% of them have a data on their phone and what do they do with the data, play games and chat with their friends without realising that with the same data they can be making money by engaging in digital marketing, social media marketing. So government is looking at ways people can be gainfully employed, from agriculture, industries, entrepreneurship, and skill development without dependency on government. Government alone can do it and we also have a dream of an Akwa Ibom where businesses will thrive. We could have an Akwa Ibomites becoming a ‘Dangote’. It is the dream of government and you know it is not something that is easy for people to adapt. There is something called resistance to change. The youth of Akwa Ibom today are so use to aspiring to become a politician or briefcase carrier for politician and laziness has crept in and once laziness creeps that mean you cannot actualise your dreams of becoming anything. In my ministry for instance, we have government press, the government press have never worked since Cross River and Akwa Ibom states parted ways because the machines the machine were probably bought before I was born. So that place has become some junk yard of some sort ,nothing works in that place yet we have staffs who have been earning salaries for thirty years some probably have not worked and the government in his thinking feels that plying government funds into printing press will not help because why was government printing press set up in the first instance. The press is supposed to handle all the printing jobs in and from governments or within circle that alone is huge amount of job. Today we print jobs from Port Harcourt, and Lagos that is capital flying out of Akwa Ibom state. so what have we done , we have sort the private investor who were at the verge of engaging them to take over the management of that  press and run it as a business, profitable business without government interference with the only caveat that 80% of staff must be Akwa Ibom indigenes and whatever period we would agree remits money to the government of Akwa Ibom state, in that instead of allow that thing to lie fallow we give the franchise to that individual who now runs it  as a business and pays the government money, the same thing we want to do with the Pioneer Newspaper. The Pioneer Newspaper also we have the state of the printing machine lying in that place complete with 500 kva generator, fork lift and CT machines and those have never been used. The first thing would been to find a way of getting to work but if it does work and you don’t run it as a business six months down the line the machine will break down and investment will be wasted.  So we have also found the private investor who has signified interest in taking over the running of that machine and running it as business independent of government. And that will help in the employment of other hundred people directly and then not to of the indirect ones. Talks are ongoing with other newspapers who circulate in Akwa Ibom to print here instead of freighting them here from outside. It is just sending the finished design it is printed the same time as in Lagos etc. All that we ask of is that people should rise up and support government in this new drive though people are saying this government is not giving out monies. I will say no, in economy there is what you call opportunity cost, do this and don’t do this. Instead of giving you N10 we rather empower you. You can empower another person to earn income. It has a multiplier effect. It is easy for a young man to come to me and say he is hungry and I give him N5000. Another he comes and I give N5000, am not helping him. Having him gainfully employed to have some kind of knowledge and skill to help him is better. As part of government desire to ensure that those that are trained we don’t lose track of them and we also know that after training some them go into oblivion and so what we have done is to setup an online portal where these guys will give them free marketing and training and they can also access the portals easily. We call it ‘Hire A Workman in Akwa Ibom’. You need for instance a carpenter around Ewet Housing you simply go online and you will see the location of all carpenters. That way you can help them showcase their talents and businesses thereby earn reasonable income.
One thing that will keep these youths in sustainable business is power supply. Do you think there is steady power supply and also why is Akwa Ibom not promoting the culture of entrepreneurship in recognising captains of industries etc, at public functions?
I can proudly tell you that the power supply in Akwa Ibom state is much better that what you find in other parts of the country kudos to the independent power station. The issue of power supply not even Nigeria have they been able to fix it because, it not a one man thing there are several aspects to it. There is power generation and distribution. When you generate how do you distribute? For there to be a synergy we need to have it from the federal government to be able to make this work effectively because federal government also have some channels where this power could be distributed and we need to have a synergy between the two. We don’t have the resources to say let’s be our own power supplier a 100%, maybe in future we would have grown capacity but  today we don’t have that capacity what we have is to consciously take one step at a time towards realising that dream. I can boldly say that power supply has improved greatly better than what we have in most parts of the country but that is not the optimal level. The optimal level is that we consistently build at what we have to service and maintain what we’ve got. i am certain we would reach that dream land.
Well on the second part, first it is erroneous to say government does not appreciate the captains of the industry in an organised private sector. What makes a business? Every business needs some basic things to be able to function, from the infrastructure, to roads and power. If you want to start a business in most part of the country you have to build your own road, be your own security, generate your own power, water board and maybe create your own community. Now those are factors that militate against most successful start up companies in Nigeria. That is why you see so many companies start before you know it they crash because they get bogged down with this. In advanced country good road is taken for granted, same with security and water. So you are starting your business you are grappling with the main issue of your business. In Akwa Ibom state, governor Udom Emmanuel has set machineries to make this work. First, road infrastructure, people have in twenty months you have constructed over 700 km of roads why are you still building roads, and we said because want we want Akwa Ibom state to become a tourist centre and investor’s heaven . Security for instance is paramount for the success of any business. Nobody wants to invest where his money, property and lives are not secured. Accessibility, we are surrounded by many states and all the link roads are federal government road. All of them are in complete state of disrepair. The only other outlet is the Atlantic Ocean. In absolute terms the only way anybody can come into Akwa Ibom state conveniently is through the airport and that is why you see the government of Akwa Ibom state set in place a machinery to begin to build the second runway, that second runway is trying to militate against the same problem we had in Abuja. Abuja was cut off because   there   was only one runway in the airport. There is so much lost of man hour. So we don’t want to get to that point in Akwa Ibom state. We need to be proactive to get that second runway so that at no point in time that airport will have the risk of being closed. His Excellency has pleaded with federal government to come in and assist the state, not just for Akwa Ibom but Nigeria as well. Today if you go to the airport in Lagos you will see 10s and 20s of aircraft lying down seeking for repairs. There is no maintenance hangar, our airport was originally proposed to have a maintenance hangar. Now we can’t do it on our own, we expect federal government to assist, help us. We need enablement to make it happen without most of those aircraft today we can’t plan our journey with an airline in Nigeria because they shift flights at will. Some of them have one aircraft that will run like Keke over the place. But if we have hangar for rudimentary maintenance you repair and move on we would have improved airline business in Nigeria. His Excellency has said in several discussions pleaded with the federal government to come in and assist the state and make that happen not just for Akwa Ibom state but entire Nigeria. The aviation industry is very crucial, you see some major airlines have parked, few hanging are trying to survive. We believe if the federal government really bend backwards to do this bidding Akwa Ibom state will be that ideal place. Few years ago Nigerians were trying to kill apartheid in South Africa and after apartheid has been killed in the 90s, today Nigeria’s economic is almost being taken by the South Africans. We are being colonised by Dstv, Mtn, Shoprite and even spa. Today Nigerians go to South Africa for vacation, to go as far as going to the beach over there when there is a beach at Ibeno. We are also looking at a scenario where could sing a different song of Akwa Ibom state, to drive people to peculiarities of the things we have in Akwa Ibom state. if you go Dakar, Senegal, Accra, Ghana we have ‘the beach of no return’. But there is also ‘beach of no return’ in Ibeno, not many people know that. If we begin to let people know we have these in the state it could drive more people to Akwa Ibom state. it is not just government that is going to benefit. From the pepper seller to Keke driver and recharge card seller will benefit. Another serene environment is Le Meridian Hotel and Golf Resort, here we have one of the best golf centres you can think of in Africa. Ibom Specialist Hospital is here with one of the best facilities in the country. It is underutilized plus other glorious stories to tell.
Can you throw more light on why government is creating  10 sport arenas?
Let me use a personal example, growing up as young guy I use to play football and I recall that I use to play football with some rickety stadia  all over the place and every time we went for a competition outside the state, 60% of the times, we had inferiority complex, most of the time we didn’t lose out because we’re not good we lost out because we were timid and by that we found out that we had generation of excellence sport people who never had the opportunity to really express  themselves because there were no facilities, you have to go queue at one sandy pitch and so today the government is saying no. In each of the ten federal constituencies we would build sporting facilities and mini sport centres which will be built around school premises so that the children can go to school and combine that with sport. Today some the best sport men and women are graduates. Let’s start with our son Vincent Enyeama, he is graduate of the University of Uyo. He has a  certificate, but he is earning a living playing football. Not everybody was cut out to be in corporate world. If you look at a country like Jamaica who produces the best athletes in the world, how much more Nigeria that has over one hundred million people? We got to last Olympic and got just a solitary bronze medal whereas Usain Bolt of Jamaica won more gold medal than Nigeria has ever won in 3 or 4 Olympics.  So his Excellency took it upon himself to lead the way by going back to the grassroots. So Akwa Ibom state is leading through the way in grass root sport development. Private schools are built with no sporting facility, it means that those children will never have the opportunity of expressing themselves or know how talented there are. We also have scouts all over to train budding talents, so today sports is big business, multibillion naira business. That can become a major income earner for Akwa Ibom state. if we discover and groom another young Ronaldo where in serious contract arrangement the state can continually benefit. Since we won the nations cup we have not been to two or three nation’s cup tournament. Â
The coach of Akwa United, Abdu Maikaba said the major reason he came to Akwa Ibom is that Akwa Ibom has ready facilities that we can make champions out of it. Do we expect to get an indoor facility for sporting events like volley ball, boxing coming soon?
Well, right now I am not sure the economy is very right for the government to focus on that now. The idea is not to concentrate on one sport centre; the idea is to spread it. Right now the focus is discovering and nurturing them to give them the opportunity to take on the world. If you notice in the last navy games and youth festival some of the games were at Ultrafit, and West Itam Mini Sports Centre
Does your boss, Gov. Udom Emmanuel believe in fiscal federalism, that we can generate from here and have absolute control over our resources?
That should be the dream of Akwa Ibom person. We contributes a large chunk of Nigeria’s resources and we don’t get a large chunk of those resources back in terms of revenue and so every Akwa Ibom person should be desirous and say look, we generate our income let’s have a large lion share of our income. It is only fair like his Excellency has said in different forum. Those are ongoing discussion that we hope at some point the voice of reason will be heard. Like I have said earlier today Akwa Ibom rightly provide the larger chunk of Nigeria’s income and yet there is not one federal government project in Akwa Ibom state, not one road, not one industry and nothing that is from federal government and there is no equity in that.
How about some ongoing NDDC projects in the state, are these not federal government projects? Â Â
That is Niger Delta Development Commission, now if you compare federal government presence in other states and compare projects and the income we provide for Nigeria then you will understand what am talking about
As a serving commissioner with corporate repute, much was expect from you in this executive council. What will be your personal ambition towards improving Udom’s administration?
Well for me like I have said in different fora that Akwa Ibom state is blessed to have a governor endowed with sound financial management knowledge. He also has a human heart, this is a governor who takes the interest of Akwa Ibomites as a paramount priority. He is particular about the welfare and well being of every Akwa Ibom person. For me sitting down here I share the same passion, I share the same dreams because if I didn’t share the same vision I would have still been in Lagos with bank job. I came onboard his team because I strongly believe in him, his vision, dreams at 100% for me I see a bright future for Akwa Ibom state. By the time remaining six years tenure of this government expires Akwa Ibom would have made some significant stride that are sustainable. Not stride that begin to dwindle but sustainable like the Syringe Factory which His Excellency mentioned that the Syringe factory will come on board. This is exciting because research shows that Nigeria uses over 6billion syringe packs per annum and where do these syringes come from? They are imported from South Africa, China and other parts of the world. There is no syringe factory in Nigeria, none in West Africa. Akwa Ibom syringe factory is the first of its kind in this geographical location. It has the capacity of 350million per annum. Outrightly that does not meet the demands of Nigerians but we believe in starting small and grow big and we believe we will gradually meet the demands of Nigerians. Imagine the syringe factory in Akwa Ibom meeting the requirement in Nigeria we will not wait for the federal government to give us money from oil proceed to survive. It means our economy will switch to autopilot stream of income plus the coconut refinery. At the same time in another two or three years, when the toothpick and pencil factories would have been running at full steam the economy of Akwa Ibom state would have stabilize with or without oil revenue alongside the entrepreneurial investment of the state government into the youths of Akwa Ibom. The future is not just bright but sustainable. We will be in the lead of this market before other states and these businesses are not structured as government agencies rather as full businesses with private enterprises coming in, government will not be involved in the day to day running.
