Governor Udom anointed aspirant says “Akwa Ibom Youths are Hungry’’

In an apparent effort to counter the narrative of the Akwa Ibom state government that thousands of youths have been taken off the street through its entrepreneurial programme, Pastor Umo Eno the commissioner for Lands and Water Resources and the Governors ‘anointed’ aspirant in the 2023 governorship election has said that the number of unemployed youths was on the increase in the state.

Eno made this staggering remark at a consultative meeting with local government chairmen to solicit their support for his political bid.

According to him now sarcastically appalled ‘preferred successor’, this inequality in the distribution of wealth in the state has resulted in the situation where a few access the largesse of government, leaving the youths to wallow in penury.

The remark which indirectly indicts the State government where he is a stakeholder said, “something urgent must be done to remove them from the streets”.

“I believe that this democracy can and should trickle down…If we don’t move our youths from the streets, we, the elites, will not have a place to stay…”

Already the comment has attracted commendation and applause, particularly from the youth demographic which largely agrees that the current administration in the state was unfair to its citizens, especially the vulnerable.

Eno suggested as leeway that the State government tinkers with her priorities to accommodate engagement in a positive manner with the youths.

“Our youths are hungry. What they need is not handouts. What they need is job, job, and job”.

The commissioner’s observation buttressed a recent report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), which rated Akwa Ibom among the states that are worse hit by unemployment. The other states mentioned were Imo, Rivers, Delta and Kaduna.

The NBS report had indicted Akwa Ibom that despite being among states with the highest federal allocations and high internally generated revenue, youths were poorly catered for, hungry and highly unemployed.

Premium Times had quoted the NBS data reporting that while Imo State had the highest rate of unemployment in the country with 48.7 per cent, Akwa Ibom became second while Rivers State was third with 45.2 and 43.7 per cent, respectively.

Although, the Akwa Ibom State government made frantic effort to debunk the statistical report of NBS at the time, Umo Eno’s remark is seen by some observers as admission of failure by the government of the day.

Interestingly, nothing shows that there will be an appreciable change if Eno succeeds Emmanuel as government business has already been shut down, while paid youths groups and government functionaries accompany him on a jamboree of arranged adoptions.

At such functions, the unemployed youths are paid to create a false sense of popularity for peanuts, thereby taking advantage of their unemployed conditions with continued handouts