Ephraim Inyangeyen: Still Keeping the tradition of superior performance
“I am really not good a blackmail material” – Chris Colfer, American actor, singer, and author
Great leaders are naturally audacious and stubborn about taking risks, which consequences can only be vindicated by time and events. Although Governor Udom Emmanuel knew too well that the redeployment of Mr. Ephraim Inyang-eyen from the Ministry of Works will create a vaccum, he helplessly but courageously still went ahead with that costly decision.
That, potentially, was because of years of implicit trust the governor has built in this dependable stakeholder and highly prized workaholic in whom he foresaw the ability to inject undiluted brand of fresh oil into the machinery of governance directly from the Government House.
Recall that for about a month or so after his appointment, Inyangeyen exigently served as a shadow Commissioner over Works, not until his official handing-over of Thursday, July 6, 2020. This tactical withdrawal or calculated reluctance by the Governor to let Inyangeyen go too abruptly following the announcement of his appointment as Chief of Staff to the Governor on Friday, June 19, 2020 must have been a discreet strategy to lessen the immediate effects of his departure.
In Inyangeyen you fine equitable and complementary measure of capacity, desire, dedication, as well as the therapeutic stubbornness to deliver on assignments with the fine finish of master-class finesse. Without pretentions to its present quiet and lukewarm status, those still arguing till this moment that the post-Inyangeyen Ministry of Works has lost the sparkles that once made it the Ministry of ministries, with a Commissioner who can drive all heavy-duty machines and personalities with commendable outcomes, must be forgiven for their courage to say it the way it is.
From the first second Inyangeyen walked into his new office, all living and non-living things in Government House knew that the man with magical fingers and muscles of steel has arrived. Ever since then, the prevalent conversations amongst staff within and without the Hilltop Mansion are that the greasy nozzles and blocked gutters along the interconnected channels of government’s multiple engagements have been desilted and a thousand cartons of burden taken off the governor’s shoulders. This has opened up government frontiers, generated auspicious stimulus for collective productivity, and is stimulating the Completion Agenda like never before.
For those who never knew Inyangeyen heretofore, or who due to avoidable ignorance or envy may have chosen to feast perpetually on assumptions over the years, it must be recalled as a matter of fact that the Onna-born technocrat and management expert did not enter the political arena on the bandwagon of disparate and desperate political parasites in search of opportunistic footholds.
Inyangeyen came into politics as an accomplished man, an established force in productive private enterprise, a renowned manager of human and material resources, an incurable optimist who sees opportunities in every challenge, a service-oriented character and indefatigable goal-getter with distinctive value-adding credentials and potentials.
Anywhere any day, Inyangeyen stands tall as a proud alumnus of the famous Etinan Institute; School of Basic Studies, Akamkpa (now a campus of the University of Cross River State); University of Ibadan; University of Lagos; and Walden University, Minneapolis, USA – long academic paths that have progressively harnessed his endowments, moulded his personality and accorded him a permanent seat in the assembly of pure-breed gentlemen and impeccable public servant of the 21st century.
With his cumulative streak of hard work and outstanding performance in the Nigeria Customs Service where he dutifully served for two and half decades before quitting with honour, his remarkable exploits in academic kingdoms, it was no surprise that Inyangeyen soon became an eponym for an empire of assorted businesses that provided services and employment to many demographics across Nigeria. Pray, if it were just for want of what to do for survival, to a man like Inyangeyen, politics may only have come as the last option for contribution to the growth and development of his immediate and wider society.
Exponentially, Inyangeyen’s journey through the big and small corridors of politics and public service that today finds him enjoy recurrent mention in the discourse of service delivery in Akwa Ibom State and beyond are deservedly built upon a solid foundation of genuine personal attainments and impeccable record of public stewardship over the years. He came into politics as a dependable asset with expandable and investable liquidity. He came not as a liability but as an iconic technocrat, audacious risk-taker, unbent pillar in loyalty, and a strategist in competitive demand by whoever values goals’ actualization.
That is why, wherever he serves, Inyangeyen’s appreciable consistency in altruistic undertakings and spiral promotions by God and man never came as tokens of gratifications, but as commensurate incentives for greater performance. Until you look at Inyangeyen through these open windows into his enterprising rich past, it may be hard to tell exactly where he derives the unique idiosyncrasy, expertise, energy, work philosophy, experience and trademark to deliver on whatever assignments he is given with distinction today.
This is the collective misgiving of a syndicate of fifth columnists in leftist media. Out of their own ignorance or spurred by treacherous elements in political circles, they refuse or have sworn never to see Inyengeyen through the liberating lights of truth and reality, but to hang up like mistletoes on his luxuriant branches of achievements and reputation, to cause every possible distraction.
And that is not hard to crack: They feel uncomfortable, envious and overwhelmed by the rising profile and consistency with which the pioneer Chief of Staff to Governor Udom Emmanuel has traversed the public service landscape with transcontinental commendations. It has by now become more obvious than ever before that some so-called journalists in Akwa Ibom State would suffer instant extinction and their badly printed newspapers would not sell even a copy of an edition in a whole month if the credible name “Ephraim Inyengeyen” does not blaze across headliness.
Unfortunately, to a busy man like Akparawa Ephraim Inyangeyen, there is scarcely any spare time to squander on any covert or overt forces of distraction. It is therefore a pity that this accursed appendage of the media profession has not been able to read the bold handwriting on the wall, up till now.
As a matter of fact, like at other places he had served both within and outside government, Inyangeyen’s unsurpassing performance, with a savvy and courage to turn tall mountains into sandy plains, progressively exposes and also challenges the bureaucratic inadequacies and iniquities of other State Executives who suffer chronic low-performance syndrome. There was no doubt that he came into his new office, the present office, with these harmless weapons of extraordinary success.
Just a little above four months since assumption of office as Chief of Staff, Inyangeyen’s indelible footprints have eloquently vindicated the governor’s historic choice. In general, his distinctive imprints in the socio-political development of Akwa Ibom State now make clearer the difference between those who came into politics merely to make a living and those who did so to offer service in the collective interest of all.
In the timeless words of a Spanish novelist, Miguel de Cervantes, “Truth may be stretched, but cannot be broken, and always will rise above falsehood as oil above water”.
Thank you Akparawa Ephraim Inyangeyen for not minding ungrateful distracters and blackmailers but keeping your characteristic momentum of excellent stewardship to fatherland!
