2023 manifestos: The ‘Building People Agenda’ of Onofiok Luke
By Benjamin Jimmy
“At its best, leadership development is not an ‘event’. It is a capacity -building endeavour. It’s a process of human growth and development” – Linda Fisher Thornton.
It is no longer news that nearly all the serious governorship aspirants for 2023 governorship election in Akwa Ibom State have, at different occasions and times, spoken politically as supposed of them to quell the yearnings of Akwa Ibomites of what they have in their offings as manifestos or agenda.
These manifestos, interestingly, are as beautiful as they were crafted and as usual as they have always been rhythmically presented to the people.
However, one out of all of these artistic craftings called manifestos that appears to address very frontally the stark realities of the Akwa Ibom people is what Rt. Hon. Onofiok Luke presented before the executive members of the PDP recently.
Perhaps what he spoke about may have been a tip of the iceberg in the ocean, but what is alluring about the whole of his little piece of manifesto – “the building people agenda” like a thrilling theatrical performance is that it is new, fresh, galvanizing and above all, completely in acknowledgement of Akwa Ibom peculiarities and realities as well.
One outstanding peculiarity or reality of the Akwa Ibom people in this present times is the dearth of deliberate action plan in place that can rally round all attentions and conversations towards building the people who, obviously, have a lot of infrastructure: good roads, an imposing worship centre, a tall smart building and others, yet are not built for all these developments. What a paradox of development!
Onofiok Luke must have learnt or known about this irony of development in the state through his many years participation in the affairs of the state and also, his daily interfacing with all the strata of Akwa Ibom State as it is normal of a grassrooter like him. He must have felt poverty as someone who started from the scratch of beginnings and staggered through up until now that he has come as a solutionist to what he is well familiar with.
It is not surprising therefore, to anyone who knows Onofiok Luke well that he has crafted his vision of becoming a governor in the next political dispensation around a familiar terrain; an area of humanity that has often been ignored or neglected flagrantly by previous governments, even by other aspirants who seem not to have a clear view and understanding of the Akwa Ibom crucibles.
Building people first has been the saddest misplaced priority of all governments at all levels, unfortunately. This has remained like a policy in oblivion; a very negligible aspect one can think of. It is like a developmental miscarriage that doesn’t seem to cease the flow of blood. It is a policy in myopia and faded imagination of human mind.
However, it is this narrative, interestingly, that Onofiok is driving down the conversations of the people who, presumably, are long drawn in expectations of a new thinking philosophy where human capacity building finds expressions in all policies relating to development.
This is indeed the developmental philosophy that Onofiok Luke studied within and outside the country before now, for a time like this where a new developmental ideology; an ideology founded on many human experiences and realities on ground, rather than one that is ignorant of Akwa Ibom hues and cries will be needed to redefine governance.
For almost all the Akwa Ibom people, so I think, this new developmental philosophy building of people that Onofiok had incubated long ago and has decided to berth is most timely and appropriate.
This is because the past administrations of Arc. Victor Attah and Godswill Akpabio had built a lot of milestone infrastructure that was needed to break the ground through for what we now have as an infrastructural renaissance. Mr. Udom Emmanuel, on his part, has continued to build on the existing infrastructure in the last six years of his administration, thus systematically preparing for another developmental phase- human capacity building, a brainchild Luke intends to midwife if elected governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2023.
For political followers of the state’s politics, Onofiok should have the highest number of followings for governorship, considering his well focused and definitively crafted manifestos that is more of human than infrastructure; for no agenda can be more appropriate now than that which Luke articulates in cognizance of the present economic realities in the state.
