UYO—Akwa Ibom Government has reiterated its readiness to industrialize the state through the establishment of one industry in each local government area of the state.

Governor Godswill Akpabio, while declaring his intention to seek re-election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party,  PDP, in next year’s general elections, explained that in his second term, the government will  use Public-Private Partnership, PPP, to establish industries to create more  employment opportunities for the teeming youths of the state.

“We shall explore internal and national corporation to help move this turnkey initiative forward while fashioning out ways of strategically  engaging our citizens in the Diaspora for the development,” he said.

To  create more jobs for the people, the Governor said, “we look forward to the construction of Ibom Industrial City. Ibom Industrial City will be an industrial mix of oil and gas-based support services, dockyard and watercraft repair facilities, fertilizer plant, oil refinery, gas-to-liquid projects, petrochemical industries, power plant, deep seaport, among others.”   According to him, the city promises to be a sustaining industrial city with schools, hospitals, shopping malls, hotels and will be one of a kind in the state.

Other priorities for his second term administration, he said are completion of Tropicana Entertainment Centre, opening of Uyo metropolis by the construction of ring roads,  construction of roads in other local government areas and building of an Olympic size stadium in Uyo.

Chief Sunny  Udoh, an industrialist, meanwhile spoke on the need for Akwa Ibom people to support Akpabio’s second term in office in 2011 to enable him complete on-going projects and do more for the people.

At PDP Secretariat, Ikot Ekpene Road, Uyo, Akpabio thanked PDP faithfuls for  standing by him since the 2006 party primaries, thus changing the history of consensus candidate in the state.

Akpabio thanked for not listening to his critics who tried to fan the embers of tribalism, division and hatred to lose their support, saying ‘’As a party, we should challenge those who want to lead tomorrow to do more than what Akpabio did. We must see the state as one entity and when they are through, they would have set a standard for others to follow”.

He specifically thanked the PDP Vice Chairman of the South_South Region, Chief Edet Mkpubre and the Chairman of Akwa Ibom Caucus in the National Assembly, Senator Effiong Bob for supporting him and maintaining their integrity when some dissenting voices called for cancellation of the state executive council list of the party duly held and elected by the party men.