BEING THE CHRISTMAS MESSAGE BY HIS EXCELLENCY, PASTOR UMO ENO, GOVERNOR, AKWA IBOM STATE, GOVERNMENT HOUSE, UYO-DECEMBER 25TH, 2023
Fellow Akwaibomites,
1.Today represents a great day in Christendom. It is the day the Saviour of mankind, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born.
2.My wife, Her Excellency, Pastor Patience Umo Eno and I, extend to you our warmest greetings on this great and important day in the Christian Calendar. It is a season of joy, of good tidings, of love and of looking out for those who may have fallen on the rough edges of life. It is a day to celebrate hope, that, in the birth of our Lord and Saviour, our future and salvation to mankind are assured.
3.Let me again thank you all for the prayers and support you have extended to us, since you overwhelmingly voted for me, on March 18th, 2023, to be your Governor.
4.It has been seven months of hitting the ground running and working furiously to translate into practical and measurable terms our campaign promises as encapsulated in our ARISE Agenda.
5.This speech is not one to reel-off my Scorecard; in my New Year Day Broadcast to you my dear people, I will present what we have collectively achieved together in the last seven months, and what we hope to achieve in the New Year.
6.Let me use this opportunity to thank all those who have expressed such heart-warming and wonderful sentiments to us, for bringing Christmas cheers to our workers through the payment of the additional one month salary, making it 13 months which you have affectionately dubbed “Eno-Mber”.
7.We will continue to pay special attention to our workers and also ensure that we create the enabling environment for Small and Medium Scale Enterprises, (SMEs) which is the engine of growth, in any economy to thrive.
8.We will continue to tackle those critically important kitchen-table issues, which affect families. We will continue to pay down gratuities to our retired workers, and ensure that our children go to school, especially at the primary level in an atmosphere that fosters creativity, academic excellence and social interactions, as exemplifies by the features and facilities at the newly rebuilt Model Primary School at Christ the King School, on Wellington Bassey Way, Uyo, which would be replicated in all local government areas. We are doing same, in the healthcare sector, with the soon-to- be commissioned model healthcare centre, located in Ikot Nkowk, Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area.
9.This is a season of joy and goodwill. I call on our people to continue to live in peace and unity and eschew tendencies that seek to divide us. As I have been saying: Politics is long gone. It’s now time for governance. We should bury and throw into the trash can, the cards of hatred, of whipping non-existence schisms and of demonizing our leaders and symbols of authority. From Ibibio to Annang lands, to Oro Nation, to Obolo, we are united and shaped by the language of love and unity. We are homogenous. Therefore, let no one throw a poisonous substance into our otherwise calm waters of unity and kindred spirit.
- We will continue to flow with the waves of love and amity and as you celebrate this day, please remember to reach out to those who may have fallen on the rough patches of life. Don’t just give hand-outs, give them a hand to get up and let us together ARISE and work to extend the frontiers of the Golden Era of our collective growth, development and progress.
- I wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year in advance! God bless Akwa Ibom State, God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria and God bless us all.