Akwa Ibom rural dwellers to smile soon ... as government plans to open up rural communities

The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Rural Development, Barr. Ekong Sampson has assured rural communities in the state of the present government’s determination to usher in an era of rural revolution.

Hon. Ekong Sampson in a chat with newsmen in Uyo recently noted that the rural-urban migration as presently experienced, especially, among the youths, was a veritable source of worriness and concern to Udom’s administration who during his electioneering campaigns promised a total face-lift for rural dwellers.

The Commissioner, himself a journalist, explained that no nation or state can boast of touching the lives of her citizenry when it has failed to develop and open up its rural communities through the provision of some basic aminities and infrastructures to the people.

The former Assemblyman and one time Chairman of Mkpat Enin Local Government Area reasoned that, since rural dwellers account for the population chunk of every nation, “it is only a expedient for government to take their increasing plights seriously and proffer solutions to chart the way forward aimed at emancipating their suffering lots.

According to him, it is the plan of my Ministry to open new roads and grade or tar old ones, provide electricity and water as well as work in collaboration with other relevant government ministries and agencies towards the establishment of cottage industries to stem the current tide in rural-urban drift which had plagued the state, overtime.

“My Ministry as we speak, has already set necessary machinery in motion to ensure that we make some appreciable impacts in the aforementioned areas as this dry season beacons”, the ace politician assured. 

The Commissioner who observed that rural transformation remains at the front burner in the present scheme of things in Akwa Ibom State as streamlined by the present government, however, warned rural communities to be weary of the pressing need to always protect government property and facilities extended to them and treat them as their own property since they are the ultimate beneficiaries.