October 21, Akwa Ibom State was agog as the erstwhile Secretary to the State Government, Deacon Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, finally heeded what was decidedly a popular call to throw his hat in the gubernatorial ring. The crowd that thronged the Uyo Township Stadium was both mammoth and awe-inspiring by its sheer- number and passion displayed.

Looking at the crowd, one couldn’t help but conclude that indeed the people of Akwa Ibom have found in Emmanuel sterling qualities which will sustain the rate and depth of development that the Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio-led administration has engendered in the state for the past seven and a half years.

A cursory look at his manifesto revealed a man who obviously is prepared for leadership and will hit the ground running the moment the people of the state affirmed his gubernatorial ambition. It also gladdens one’s mind to realize that he will sustain and deepen the ethos and mechanics of the Uncommon Transformation and this is one area that I have been most concerned about.

As one who has witnessed and chronicled the transformation of Akwa Ibom from a land where  the immediate industry available to the people was to export their sons and daughters to take care of the culinary needs of the well-heeled ; a land where gloom and doom were the defining elements, a land where the psychological and physical layers of the state were constantly defined downward and where sunny disposition- a ‘can-do spirit ‘ were desirable ingredients but sadly unattainable, a place that was in the basement of national considerations within the larger Nigerian enterprise, to a land where we are now major players in the national boardroom, a land where the dividends of democracy are being show-cased and government no longer seen and regarded as a force for ill but a force for good, a land where despondency has been replaced by an infectious air of unbridled optimism and where sunny disposition is worn like a badge of honor, a land where the people now believe and have internalized the notion that they, too, are as aspirational and success- driven as other Nigerians,  and having  witnessed this transformation in a short space of seven and half years and now be infused with the possibilities that lie ahead, I had been worried and traumatized by the thought that these gains could be reversed if we didn’t find a worthy successor who would be willing and capable of sustaining these lofty developments.

I am acutely aware of the principle of continuity as an important element of development. As both a journalist and a political scientist I have studied and analyzed why mature democracies such as the United States was able to neuter the flaming  passions of partisanship arising from ideological differences and came up with certain norms and conventions of development that were ideologically neutral.

The pledge by Emmanuel that he will sustain and continue the developmental strides of the current administration has been music to the ears of millions of Akwa Ibom people whose hopes and desire is to see the state making quantum leap in all areas of development, and continue to be an example of what an inspired and dedicated leadership can mean to the welfare, psyche and orientation of the people.

Udom has all the requisite qualities of a leader who will activate and deploy the latent potentials of the people and continue to make them believers in the awesomeness of the instrumentality of government. His over two decades spent within corporate boardroom, his exposure to international financial systems and its best practices, his key policy thrust on industrialization and human capital development will indeed move the state the next level of transformation.

Based on what one had witnessed at the formal declaration of Deacon Udom Emmanuel and the tail wind that is blowing in his favor, it is indeed a good time to be an Akwaibomite, a land where Godswill is always done, and what not? The state is named after God almighty.

Udom Emmanuel’s is the Publisher of The Diasporan Star in New York and Vice Chair, News of the world. His blog, Ekerete Udoh’s World, will be unveiled soon