Who Was Pastor Umo Eno Before He Became Governor?

By Umo Robinson

The above question was posed by the Akwa Ibom State Chapter of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, “on behalf of every Akwa Ibom son, daughter…” in a recent Press Release signed by Comr. Ewa Okpor, Party State Publicity Secretary.

The release was a response to a video clip in which Governor Eno upbraided Senator John James Akpan Udo Edehe who had in an earlier video accused the Governor of not taking calls, in addition to saying that posterity would not forgive him if under his watch the 76 oil wells currently under contention are taken from Akwa Ibom State.

If the PDP by its declaration in the release was asking the question vicariously on behalf of the rest of us Akwa Ibom people, it behoves on each Akwaibomite to weigh in with his or her perspective on the matter – hence this humble contribution.

From the sequence of remarks, the Governor would seem to be the first to query and undermine the status of Senator Udo Edehe, a narrative which the PDP is pushing and consequently feasting upon as it experiments with its new role as the party of opposition in the state. But no: the governor’s “who is he?” in reference to Senator Udo Edehe is different in spirit and semantics from the PDP’s “who was Pastor Umo Eno Before He Became Governor?”

Compared to prominent Akwa Ibom people like Senator Udoma Udo Udoma who, in spite of his towering status, sincerely and without political sentiments, bestirred himself to reach out to government in order to make patriotic inputs to the ongoing struggle over the 76 oilwells, who is Senator Udo Edehe? That’s my very considered reading of the Governor’s remarks. The PDP on the other hand is questioning and trying to make nonsense of everything concerning Pastor Umo Eno before he became governor, mischievously ignoring the great strides represented by Umo Eno’s Royalty Group which has offered hundreds of jobs to Akwa Ibom people.

And that tendency to talk down on productive enterprise by any justification at a time when politics has been reduced to nothing but parasitic showmanship, is the real concern of this piece. It is precisely this culture of consumption without production that is making our people investment-shy, with the result of a youth population preferring engagement as PAs to PAs(even if for a pittance as reward) rather than go into production and create jobs for themselves and others.

“The man that is coming after me (Umo Eno) is a hundred times better than me, ” said former Governor Udom Emmanuel while campaigning for the election of the current administration. Given Udom’s global ranking as an investment banker, Umo Eno must have been something before becoming governor, and that was what drove the former Governor to declare him his “plan A, B and C”. And that thing was his business knack and involvement, which was intended as a game-changer in governance.

Latching on the Udom factor in Umo Eno’s emergence, the PDP’s release had a photograph of Umo Eno kneeling before Udom as an accompaniment. By this, the party feels it has secured a warrant to invoke Chinua Achebe against Eno in the quote: “Men whose palm kernel has been cracked for them by a benevolent spirit should not forget to be humble”. This is misleading and logically fraudulent, something which Mazi Albert Chinualomogu Achebe himself would have taken very strong exception to if he were alive.

The critique of such fraud would be in the form of the following questions: one, granting that “palm kernel” is a metaphor for a man’s basic challenges of housing, clothing and food, are those the “palm kernel” that former Governor Emmanuel was cracking for Umo Eno in the photograph flaunted by the PDP? Or, two, even if the party has sufficient levity to categorize the governorship of a state as “palm kernel”, is it not true that from time immemorial and the world-over, this particular kind of “palm kernel”is often bestowed by Divinity via his agents?

Very often the ordinary eye or the biased do not see what Divinity sees in selecting an individual for such bestowal. This is why they can afford to ask: “who was Umo Eno before becoming governor; who was David before becoming king in Israel; who was Esther before becoming queen in Persia; or even Jesus of Nazareth before being inducted by John the Baptiser at the River Jordan as the Christ…?”

Every genuine becoming is often from “nothing” to “something”. It is technically called cretio-exnihilo – creation out-of-nothing. So beyond serving to demonstrate the democratic rituals of opposition, the PDP Press Release was a waste of precious ink and paper.

From hawking wares on the streets of Lagos as a boy to support his mother and siblings upon the demise of his father, to starting a small hospitality business and taking it to where the Royalty Group is today, Governor Eno had by sheer dint of hardwork cracked his “palm kernel” all by himself. As Governor today, he is the proof of transformative possibilities for the ordinary Akwa Ibom person. He is the symbol of our genuine becoming.

Last year during the Federal Constituency Town Square meetings, the Governor gave that possibility of a revolution in entrepreneurship a practical side when he doled out grants to small businesses running into billions of naira. This is besides other initiatives and measures taken so far to promote economic self-reliance amongst the youths, artisans and the general Akwa Ibom populace.

Our best bet therefore is to join hands and work with him to achieve our dream Eldorado of social-economic boom.

• Robinson writes from Uyo