The Burden Of Promise

By Itoro George and Enim George

In the ancient cosmology of our forebears, the universe divides into the Sky and the Earth. Yet, a third element defines the Akwa Ibom reality. This is Inyang Ibom, the Great Ocean.
The name, “Akwa Ibom,” resonates with the vibration of Abasi Ibom – the Supreme Being and Akpa Ibom, the Boundless Sea. We are a people of the deep water. We descend from a lineage that identifies with the infinite. The Qua Iboe River
bisects our territory and serves as a liquid metaphor for our resilience. As the ancients
observed, the river may dry up, yet she keeps her name. The Akwa Ibom land stands as a spiritual vessel carrying centuries of defiance and depth.

The creation of our state on September 23, 1987, was a fulfillment of a covenant, rather than a mere
administrative decree. Then
President Ibrahim Babangida proclaimed that he created this state for “all the people” and “not for any tribe or ethnic group.” This foundational decree negates the logic of factionalism. The title, “Land of Promise,” which the state is also known as, was a theological interpretation of our potential. It signaled a territory where the abundant palm forests and the black gold beneath the soil would serve as resources for a shared prosperity.

We possess a DNA encoded for greatness. We are the children of the Women’s War of

1929. We honour Madam Adiaha Edem Udo Udoma of Ikot Abasi. She was a wealthy merchant of soap and salt who understood the economics of freedom. On December 16, 1929, she mobilised a coalition of women from the Ibibio, Andoni, Ogoni, Bonny, Opobo and Igbo nations. They stood united against unjust colonial taxation. Facing Lt. Hill and his
      troops, she refused to retreat. She snapped a colonial rifle across her knee. That act was like saying “Akem Ndien” (enough is enough), in its purest form. It was a raw, physical rejection of indignity.
      Though she fell that day, her blood watered the tree of our liberty. It flowed down to her son, the great jurist, Sir Udo Udoma.

We are the heirs of the visionaries of 1938. The Ibibio State Union taxed themselves to send
six sons abroad on scholarships. They proved that collective sacrifice seeds greatness.
Among these pioneers was Bassey Udo Adiaha Attah, who revolutionised our agriculture.
These were the actions of a people whose Ekpo masquerades once enforced moral order by hiding individual egos to uphold communal justice. That was “Akem Ini” (it is time”). It represented the wisdom that community constitutes true wealth.

This baton passed to a lineage of leaders who sketched the blueprint we now recognise as
AKEM.

Obong Akpan Isemin lashed out at the “Etok Etok” syndrome. He warned us with these words: “The problem of the Akwa Ibom man is “Etok Etok” (low life) syndrome where, for instance, rather than aspiring for greater heights and things, one decides to settle for less. That was Isemin saying ‘Akem Ndien’, to small thinking.

Obong Victor Attah, the son of the 1938 scholar, Bassey Attah, returned to complete his
father’s work. He recalled his determination to end the stigma of our people, when he said: “I was very
determined to end that syndrome… the difference between the house help and the master
was education.”

He fought federal powers for resource control to prove our status as
owners. That was Attah saying ‘Akem Ndien,’ to servitude.

Chief Godswill Akpabio built on that fire with his “Uncommon Transformation.” He vowed
to turn the state “from a pedestrian state to a destination for all Nigerians.” He declared
“Akwa Ibom Ado Ok” and proved that our state could rival the world in infrastructure. That was Akpabio saying ‘Akem Ndien,’ to mediocrity.

Mr. Udom Emmanuel echoed this spirit of self-belief with “Dakkada.” He urged Akwa Ibom people to “rise to the faith of greatness” and demanded that we “move beyond ethnicity, biases, religion
and gender.” He challenged us to find “resources beyond what others see.” That was Udom saying, ‘Akem Ndien,’ to complacency.

Today, the Akwa Ibom Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, is urging us to “ARISE”. He is tearing down the walls of socio-political and economic separation. He had declared and is showing that “Your dreams, your aspirations and your well-being will be at the heart of everything we will do.”

By uniting people across party lines, Eno is saying, ‘Akem Ndien,’ to the politics of division and ‘Akem Ini’, to socio-political and economic inclusiveness and prosperity.

In truth, every one of us carries the spirit of Akem. We share a common bond of aspiration.

For every “Enough” we pronounce against stagnation, we proclaim a “Now” for progress. To
say Akem Ndien to poverty is to simultaneously say Akem Ini to industry. We all align with
this dual spirit.

Yet the work lingers unfinished. The erosion creeps into our homes. A cousin speaks our
mother tongue to a nephew, only to hear a sharp rebuke from a mother or father, saying: “Kubiat eyen mmi edeme o” (Do not spoil/corrupt my child’s tongue).

Our language has become a contaminant in our own eyes. We raise children exiled from their roots and ashamed of names that carry ancestral fire. Our youth teem with potential yet scorn the craftsman’s hammer. They chase easy winds while
we outsource our wealth. As the proverb warns, “A lion does not birth a sheep”; We descend from warriors and scholars yet we have allowed a strange fire to burn in our midst. In many circles, a toxic cycle spins, where the youth insult the elders and the elders oppress the youth.

We have fractured the moral order our ancestors guarded.
The Akem Ndien! Akem Ini! (AKEM) initiative rises here as a mirror we hold up to ourselves.
It is a modern form of the ancient strategy of “Ufik Ntie” or “Sitting on a Man”. Just as our
grandmothers gathered to shame corrupt Warrant Chiefs into compliance, Akem Ndien is our refusal. It is the courage to look at the parent who forbids the vernacular and say, that is enough. It is the courage to say no to the division that weakens us.
Akem Ini is our affirmation. It declares that the time for renewal is now. In 1949, our forebears launched “Operation Manilla” to redeem their old, obsolete currency for modern value.
Today we face a Moral Operation Manilla. We must trade in the old, heavy currency of tribalism and the “Etok Etok” mindset. We must exchange them for the new currency of
Integrity and Unity.

Our elders remind us that a single tree makes no forest. The Governor cannot reshape mindsets alone. It is our turn. The rifle has been broken. The scholars have been sent. The Governors have spoken. Now AKEM channels that legacy into action. We must finally redeem the promise of our generation so that the next generation may find a new promise waiting for them. The cycle of greatness must never end.

Watch out for our next feature.

Our name, Akem!, serves as our prophecy and we are saying, Akem ndien! Akem Ini!

AKEM! is a socio-cultural, political and economic initiative aimed at fostering communal interest and advancement.