The Roads Ahead

By Umo Eno

I have always believed that if you want to understand a people, you start with the roads that connect them.

That is why, since the day I took office on May 29, 2023, I have made it a point to visit and examine our roads. Not just for commissioning and speeches but to walk the asphalt while it is still hot, to bend at the drainage shoulders, and to ask the contractors about culverts, elevations, flood channels and the quality of the base course.

My team sometimes calls me a ‘feld’ Governor. I take it as a compliment. No report on paper by any government official can tell me what I see than when I watch a mother struggling to carry her sick child through a bad road or when I see crops rotting because the only road to market has washed away in the last rain.

For too long, development in Akwa Ibom was trapped in the city centres. Our rural communities, where our farmers and traders live were cut off for months during every rainy season.

I decided that under the ARISE
Agenda, we would break that cycle.
Commerce begins where access exists. If a road does not reach a village, opportunities may not reach the village either.

That is why, at every opportunity, I speak about roads, I speak about our conviction, our plans, our achievements and what still needs to be done.

That is how I think. Roads are not just concrete and asphalt to me.They are economic arteries. They are how we link communities, ease traffic, improve commerce and connect our farmers directly to markets

Some people ask me why l insist on inspecting projects physically, instead of relying on reports. The answer is simple. A collapsed culvert on paper is one thing. A pregnant woman unable to reach a hospital because an entire village road has become impassable is another. My inspection tours are often unscripted and demanding, and yes, I have walked off podiums to look at adjoining roads that were not on the itinerary.

If a road matters to the people, it matters to me. On September 25, 2025, at the commissioning of the 15.13-kilometre Ika-Azumini Road and internal roads in Ika LGA, I said that governance is a continuum. It does not matter who started a project; what matters is finishing it for the people.
In our political culture, incoming administrations often abandon inherited projects out of rivalry or ego. I reject that.

The Ika-Azumini Road links Akwa Ibom to Abia and the commercial nerve centre of Aba. For traders, transporters and farmers, it means less travel stress and more business. For me, it means we are building for the people, not for politics…and since I came into office. I haven’t borrowed one dime from any bank and we are funding all our projects.

Road construction is not only about visible achievement. It is also proof of fiscal discipline. At a time when many states in Nigeria are weighed down by debt and abandoned projects, my government is delivering roads and managing our resources responsibly.

I know that for many communities, a road carries meaning beyond transportation. A road determines whether crops reach the market before they spoil. Whether children arrive safely back home from school; whether businesses survive; whether investors come and whether a community feels connected to the rest of the state.

That is why I humanise infrastructure in my speeches. In my New Year Address on January 1, 2026, I announced that over 1,000 kilometres of road were completed or ongoing statewide. But the numbers are not the point.
My target is that the people feel the impact of government across all 31 local government areas.

In every budget, you will find a line on roads because it is central to my promise.
Our determination to open up our rural areas remains deep and abiding. We want to bring governance closer to the people by improving the living conditions of our rural dwellers.

We remain passionately committed to the maintenance and expansion of our infrastructure. As we speak, we have initiated 57 strategic and economically viable FGPC-approved ARISE Road projects, 11 ARISE Direct Labour Road Projects, 37 FGPC Road Projects we inherited and are still funding and 51 old Direct Labour Projects we inherited.

That brings the total road projects currently executed in all LGAs to 156.Today, we remain intentional in ensuring that there are ongoing projects in all 31 local government areas — from model primary schools to model healthcare centres, 78 new feeder roads, 30 wet markets, water projects, electricity, etc -all in line with our desire to stem rural-urban migration and ensure a good quality of life for our rural dwellers.

To me, roads are the signature of this administration. They are how we keep faith with the people who believed that government only existed on radio jingles and election posters.

As long as I am Governor, I will keep walking those roads with you because where the road goes to, development expands and value is added to the land.

A Note on Road Infrastructure from Governor Umo Eno, published in the 8th Edition of ARISE Project Impact Report