At the 39th anniversary celebration of the State, Governor Eno presented ₦160 million to Dr. Joseph Akpan, the best graduating student in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Uyo in the 2024/2025 academic year
By Lucy Daniel
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Published on September 24, 2026
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6 min read
When Governor Umo Bassey Eno, Ph.D., presented cheques worth ₦190 million in full scholarships to two young Akwa Ibom indigenes, he did more than reward academic excellence.
He made a statement about the kind of future he believes Akwa Ibom must build.
At the 39th anniversary celebration of the State, Governor Eno presented ₦160 million to Dr. Joseph Akpan, the best graduating student in Medicine and Surgery at the University of Uyo in the 2024/2025 academic year, to pursue postgraduate studies in Surgical and Interventional Science at McGill University, Canada. He also presented ₦30 million to Uwakmfon Unwana Jacob to study Software Engineering at Nile University, Abuja. The two awards were among the highlights of the anniversary celebrations.
There is something profound about this.
A government can build roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and tourism facilities, but the most enduring infrastructure remains the human being.
Governor Eno’s scholarship gesture therefore deserves to be viewed as part of the larger ARISE Agenda, rather than as an isolated act of generosity.
The ARISE Agenda was conceived around building, empowering, protecting and creating opportunities for the people. At the heart of that philosophy is human capital development.
As Governor Eno stated in his anniversary broadcast, the greatest resource of Akwa Ibom is not beneath its soil but within its people, describing the education of children as the State’s “most enduring infrastructure.”
That is the real significance of the ₦190 million.
Investing in the people behind the development
Dr. Joseph Akpan’s journey from being the best graduating medical student at the University of Uyo to pursuing advanced studies in Canada represents what happens when talent meets opportunity.
Uwakmfon Unwana Jacob’s path into Software Engineering represents another dimension of the future, the digital and knowledge economy.
Medicine and software engineering may belong to different professional worlds, but they point in the same direction: a knowledge-driven Akwa Ibom whose young people can compete beyond the boundaries of the State.
This is particularly important as the administration moves the ARISE Agenda towards ARISE 2.0.
The Governor has identified the next phase as a transition from infrastructure to industrialization, from agriculture to agro-industrialization, from skills to enterprise, from enterprise to jobs, and from human-capital development to a knowledge economy.
The scholarships fit naturally into that vision.
You cannot build a knowledge economy without knowledge.
The bigger ARISE story
The scholarship announcement becomes even more significant when placed beside the broader record presented at the 39th anniversary.
Governor Eno reported that his administration had undertaken, commissioned or continued work on more than 1,500 kilometres of roads and 43 bridges since May 2023. He also reported ₦1.69 billion in student bursaries, the recruitment of 3,000 teachers, more than 4,000 youths trained through skills-development programmes, and more than ₦2 billion disbursed through youth skills and entrepreneurship initiatives.
These figures tell a story of physical infrastructure and human infrastructure developing side by side.
A road opens a community.
A school opens a mind.
A skill opens an economic opportunity.
A scholarship opens a door that may otherwise remain closed.
That is why the two young beneficiaries at the anniversary celebration became symbols of something much larger than themselves.
It is within this context that the argument for giving Governor Umo Bassey Eno a second term can be made, not merely as a political request, but as a question of whether an existing development framework should be given the opportunity to advance into its next phase.
The first phase of the ARISE Agenda has placed considerable emphasis on infrastructure, education, healthcare, empowerment, rural development, tourism and support for vulnerable citizens.
ARISE 2.0 is being presented as the next step: turning those foundations into stronger economic activity, industrialization, agro-industrialization, enterprise, jobs and shared prosperity.
The development programme should not end at the point where its next phase is beginning.
A second term would provide the administration with the opportunity to pursue the ARISE 2.0 agenda beyond its present foundation, particularly in the areas of industrialization, enterprise development, technology, tourism and job creation.
That proposition will ultimately be decided by the people of Akwa Ibom through the electoral process.
But the record provides the basis for the conversation.
A government that remembers
There was another powerful message from the 39th anniversary celebration.
Governor Eno did not present the State’s history as if development began with his administration.
He recognised past leaders, including former governors and military administrators, for laying foundations upon which succeeding administrations have built.
That acknowledgement is important because no serious society develops by erasing its past.
Every administration inherits something.
Every administration adds something.
Every generation has a responsibility to leave something better for the next.
Governor Eno’s recognition of his predecessors therefore reinforces the same philosophy reflected in the scholarships: build today for people who may benefit tomorrow.
The future is the real project
The most memorable image from Akwa Ibom’s 39th anniversary may not ultimately be a newly commissioned road or a transformed tourism facility.
It may be two young people holding scholarship cheques.
One preparing to advance medical knowledge.
The other preparing to enter the technology space.
Because behind every infrastructure project is a human being who must use it. Behind every economic policy is a citizen who must benefit from it. Behind every development plan is a generation that must inherit its results.
That is why the investment in Joseph Akpan and Uwakmfon Unwana Jacob carries a meaning far beyond ₦190 million.
It says that excellence deserves recognition.
It says that talent deserves opportunity.
It says that education is an investment, not an expense.
And it says that the future of Akwa Ibom cannot be separated from the quality of its people.
At 39, Akwa Ibom can look back with gratitude at the contributions of its past leaders, examine the achievements and challenges of the present, and look forward to a new phase of development.
The ARISE Agenda has provided the framework.
ARISE 2.0 provides the next horizon.
And the scholarships provide perhaps the clearest reminder of what the entire journey is ultimately about: people.
If the first chapter of the ARISE story has been substantially about building foundations, the next chapter must be about converting those foundations into greater opportunities, stronger institutions, productive citizens and shared prosperity.
That is the context in which the case for a second term for Governor Umo Bassey Eno is being advanced.
Not simply to extend a tenure.
But to extend a development programme from its foundation into its next chapter.
At 39, Akwa Ibom has built much. The greater task now is to ensure that its people are equipped to build even more.
And perhaps the most fitting anniversary message is this:
Build the roads. Build the schools. Build the hospitals. Build the industries. But above all, build the people.
That is where the future lives.
Daniel, SA to the Governor on Media
Writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State
providencemaga@yahoo.com.
