•Governor Umo Eno
DANIEL ETOKIDEM, Uyo reporting
On Thursday, August 7, 2025, inside the ornate Banquet Hall of the Government House, Uyo, the Economic Adviser to the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Dr. Mrs. Uduakobong Inam, will undertake the public presentation of the Socio-Economic Impact of the ARISE Agenda in Two Years, with the theme: “Measuring Progress, Deepening Impact” .
This year’s presentation promises to be not only informative, but revealing, backed by the Akwa Ibom State Government Quantitative Data Perspective Performance Report of May 29, 2023 – May 29, 2024, which was earlier presented at the State Executive Council meeting of July 2, 2024, to mark the governor’s first year in office.
A major departure from the in-house exercise will be the presence of high profile federal officials from the Ministry of National Planning, Federal Office Office of Statistics as well as development partners, diplomats and captains of industry from all parts of Nigeria.
Last year’s report showed an administration that, in just twelve months, achieved the following:
* 2,984 people benefited from various agricultural programmes.
* 100 public secondary schools benefited from agricultural inputs.
* 30 public primary schools benefited from agricultural inputs.
* 600 elderly people were beneficiaries of the AKSG’s financial support to elderly persons.
* 2,195 persons in the multidimensionally poor category were scaled up through various government programmes.
* 4,600 skilled and unskilled persons were engaged in various sectors across the state.
* 229.411 km of roads, 14 bridges, and 3 underground discharge drainages were constructed.
* 37.7 km of feeder roads were constructed in rural communities.
* 16,522 patients benefited from AKSG-sponsored free medical healthcare.
* 48,797 students benefited from payment of 2023/2024 SSCE fees.
* 4,603 beneficiaries emerged from AKSG’s entrepreneurship schemes.
* 3,583 state/local government retirees were paid benefits to the tune of ₦18.234 billion as of May 2024.
This year’s gathering will go a step further to measure progress and assess the extent of impact made across all five pillars of ARISE Agenda and its seventeen focal areas, with the aim of deepening the socio-economic impact of the Blueprint.
To ensure that these data are factual and scientific, with globally acceptable parameters for data collation, monitoring, analysis, and evaluation, and to proffer adequate solution to the challenges of arbitrary and faulty data about the state that is not in tune with the reality on the ground, Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom, had established the State Bureau of Statistics in December 2023.
This was done through the instrumentality of an Executive Bill sent by him to the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly known as: “A Bill for a Law to Establish the Akwa Ibom State Bureau of Statistics and Akwa Ibom State Statistical System and for Other Matters Connected Therewith”
The bill was conceived and later implemented by Governor Umo Eno to ensure that data released and related to the state are accurate, reliable, verifiable, foolproof and serve to guide future developmental planning of the state.
As finishing touches were being put to the one-day event spearheaded by Aniefiok Johnson, the Chief Delivery Officer of the Governor, Akwa Ibom people, development partners and planners of the Nigerian economy look forward to the benefits from the innovative ideas of the Umo Eno Administration.
