Staying the course, preserving legacies in Akwa Ibom

Since metamorphosing from top banker to ace politician, where he first served as Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, a Deacon and incumbent governor of Akwa Ibom State, has swiftly moved up the rungs. His current job as the state’s helmsman lends credence to this.

But with barely 20 months to the expiration of his odyssey at the Hilltop Mansion in Uyo, posterity will judge him harshly if he makes the mistake of handing the reins to an unworthy successor, who will liquidate, or cause to atrophy, what he has succeeded to attract to the state, or the investments that he has put in place.

Undoubtedly, succession plays a vital role in the life of organisations, be they profit-making or the not-for-profit ones. Multi-million dollar businesses are daily crumbled by unworthy leaders, the same way that kingdoms are blighted when unworthy heirs take the reins. These scenarios above, succinctly confirms the popular saying that an organisation that fails to take its succession plan seriously is inadvertently planning for an untimely demise.

Upon mounting the saddle, the 55-year-old spearheaded a campaign to change the ambience and business skyline of the state. An initial five-point agenda later improved into an eight-point agenda meant to rapidly industrialise the state, and change its purely civil service mien to an industrialising one, with a robust manufacturing base.

As the governor vows to achieve more with the little time that he has left, many are calling for his scalp for pouring a whopping N10b into the construction of an international worship centre, especially as the constitution forbids the adoption of a state religion. Indeed, his traducers insist that the amount would have been better spent on the erection of cottage industries in an unemployment infested state, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which rated it the host of the third largest number of job seekers.

The state’s current debt profile of over N230b, which makes it the fourth most indebted state in the country, as of December 31, 2020 (courtesy of NBS) is another issue that many consider a paradox, just as many insist that committing N1.2b to building a new Governor’s Lodge in Lagos State, especially with the unemployment yoke that the state bears, defies logic.

Be that as it may, by the time curtain falls on his gubernatorial expedition, Emmanuel would have spent 10 years in active politics. And if the tempo of what he has attracted, or initiated in the state is sustained, he would have succeeded in improving different facets of the state, especially its business life more than any governor in its history.

Therefore, leaving the state in the hands of an unworthy successor will spell doom for Emmanuel’s legacy, and have far-reaching consequences on her socio-economic wellbeing. Concerned by this, many have voiced their worries severally just as the governor has not hesitated in assuring the worried citizenry that he would never leave them in the care of a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In other words, a non-thorough bred technocrat.

In an attempt to depict the preferred quality of his would-be/ preferred successor, Emmanuel asked: “Do you want a successor who will come with anger towards all we have done, as opposed to continuing with the great works we have started? Do you want a leader whose approach to testing his popularity would be to drive in a long convoy to “Ibom Plaza” and throw money at the hapless people, watching them scramble for the money and the people would say that’s “Ano owo Mkpo”! Is that the kind of empowerment our people deserve? Someone who will bring out the worst in our youths rather than challenge them to seize the future and unleash their potentials? Do you want a successor who will relegate God to the background and assume an all-knowing power? Or do you desire a successor with a known e-mail address that the International business community recognises? Do you want a leader who will fritter away our commonwealth in search of cheap popularity, or one who would utilise the resources and continue investing in projects with enduring value?…”

Having come to terms with all these, it is important to move from rhetoric to the actual search for a successor, who will preserve his legacy sterling qualities, and possesses a verifiable track record of service, as well as an immaculate past and present. Settling for a stooge that would cover his tracks, or doing the (ab)normal preservation of interest that politicians do should be the last thing on his mind.

Emmanuel’s successor must necessarily be one that has a strong personality, empathy, and not easily distracted from set goals and objectives. He must also be confident, has integrity, a good communicator, one that prioritises human development, encourages strategic thinking and innovation, as well as one that that believes in genuinely empowering the people.

Barely eight years ago when he was politically naive and could fall for strange gambits of well-heeled political actors, he would have been pardoned for a wrong choice of a successor. But with barely 20 months before the curtain falls on his administration, such a mistake he must ill-afford, especially as career politicians in the state marshal ploy after ploy to make one of theirs the heir-apparent.

In conclusion, the next Akwa Ibom governor must not be stricto sensu, the typical politician that is sequestered in his cocoon, primarily paying lip service to good governance, and predominantly interested in sharing dividends to party faithful and political jobbers that abound.

Like Mao Zedong, a communist revolutionary who was the founding father of China (better known as Chairman Mao) admonished in Peking, in February 1957, “Let a thousand flowers bloom; let a thousand school of thoughts contend…”

Flowing from this, let enough wisdom prevail and ensure that due diligence is done in the process of recruiting a worthy successor for Emmanuel come 2023 so that at the end of the entire process, all concerned would, like the Japanese, be proud to beat their chests and say, Yo shinai, Yo kangai (loosely translated good thinking, good product.

Sunday is a Lagos-based media executive. He can be reached on calabarone@yahoo.co.uk