By Franklyn Isong
Today, Governor Udom Emmanuel was accompanied by Mr. Umana Okon Umana, the Managing Director and CEO of Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority, OGFZA, to pay a courtesy visit to the Hon. Minister of Trade, Industries and Investment at the Minister’s Office in Abuja.
The visit was in connection with the proposed Liberty Free Zone in Akwa Ibom State, according to a report on the social media.
This is a welcome development. Mr Umana was the 2015 APC governorship candidate while Mr Emmanuel was the 2015 PDP governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom state.
I am happy that both great sons of the state have decided to put aside politics and political parties’ differences to pursue the progress and development of the state.
Still fresh in my mind was, last week, Obong Nsima Ekere who was the APC governorship candidate in the 2019 elections against Mr Udom Emmanuel, on his Twitter handle, congratulated the governor on his successful completion of the Ituk Mbang Isolation Centre with NCDC approved PCR laboratory for testing of Covid-19 cases and other infections, making the state, the first to achieve such a feat in the fight against Covid-19 pandemic.
Seeing that these political gladiators and elder statesmen have chosen to place the state and her people as paramount before politics, I commend them immensely. I urge their supporters and members of the various parties in the state to please bury all political parties’ differences and emulate their leaders – Udom Emmanuel, Umana Umana, and Nsima Ekere, who are now playing politics of Akwa Ibom development.
Politics is and should be like a golf game. It should always be a “win – win” situation. All parties should now team up in the interest of the state.
This is the Akwa Ibom of my dream!
~Franklyn Isong is a public affairs commentator and conscience of the society
