- Samuel Ayara
At a time home ownership in Nigeria has become a growing tall order for the rich, 36 economically distressed and socially disadvantaged men and women in Akwa Ibom State have become proud home owners because the people in March last year, believed enough to thumb their acceptance of the ARISE Agenda mandate and see to the emergence of Pastor Umo Eno as the State’s fifth democratically elected Governor. One year after the poll, they would be more eager in angling to cast their votes for a deal they now realize has repositioned humanity for good, if the elections were to be repeated.
Inefficient mass housing scheme is a malaise that is almost indigenous to Nigeria, with a few breakthroughs only possible with the privileged lots, while the poor and vulnerable are perpetually condemned to displaced persons’ camps, if they must be mentioned in the same sentence with shelter. Conscious of our national normal, there may not be more than a few who could predict any possibility of Governor Eno departing from the debilitating housing strategy when he listed Housing Development in the third aspiration of his ARISE Agenda.
Away from tokenism, support for the vulnerable has never been considered a deliberate state policy, until the thought of building 400 tastefully furnished homes for people who hitherto lived in extremely nauseating and debasing conditions found expression. This marked a beginning that with succeeding days saw to the conversion of the air in their windpipes to breath. The beneficiaries are no longer living to die, now that life for them has had a whole new essence. Only a man commissioned for compassion can dare such, and Pastor Umo Eno leads the pack.
Like Gabriel the Angel in his message to Mary, about the birth of Jesus, the Governor’s special duties and humanitarian team must have found convincing some of these beneficiaries about their new realities a herculean task as they went round the 31 Local Government Areas to give life to the idea. People who have seen the harrowing side of life will sure have issues with trust and could have suspected the gesture as a ploy to either grab their lands, or at least a deceptive facade, which most of them have come to think as characteristical of politics.
I dare say there must have been moments the team battled tears, when faced with stories surrounding how things got so bad for some of the beneficiaries, yet their job was that of re-writing tragic stories with happy endings. The construction of a two-bedroom flat homes, finished with sophisticated fittings, solar-powered lighting and water, as well as a generous furnishing could not have been a wish the most religious of them would pray to existence. While for some the intervention is a restoration, it is for many, their first of such experience with comfort.
Relieving harrowing tales of his homelessness, Mr. Joseph Asuquo of Mbiaso in Ikot Ekpene LGA, recounted he was at life’s lowest after a windstorm swept-off the better of his thatched house, sacked his family to take refuge in a church, while he took shelter where he thought death would not be far. Every block that went into constructing him a new home rejuvenated him in more ways than any known medication would, and he never stopped smiling at how such a huge deal located him.
Another intriguing story were those of Madam Comfort Michael of Ikot Ekpeyak Ikono, Uyo LGA whose son, and only hope of a good life was already laid in a grave by the entrance of the compound. She shared an abode with chickens and had lost any felling of scare for predating creatures, having seen enough to make them family. She would not stop crying about her deceased son and all the dreams he died with, but has had all that replaced with prayers of blessings for Governor Umo Eno who has come through for her and family.
Mr. John Okokon Akpan, from Mbiaya, the Uruan LGA beneficiary could not say more than exclaim “ow, ow, ow” on endless repeat, like an ambulance. He looked like one who had seen better days, but lost it all when life happened. For John, Governor Eno has made him live more than once, with the tastefully furnished new home, he can truly think himself restored.
The magical velve of this intervention is a reality most beneficiaries still doubt, one of them, Madam Arit Uwe, from Oron LGA, may need people to help her make sense of this gesture. A woman whose best bet for a shelter was under a tree, for fear of being buried in the rubbles of a shanty whose strength kept failing by the day. She sure misses the tree that for months unending availed her shelter, but that was for a ticket to the new life the Governor has breathe her direction, as she keeps praying God’s blessings on the state chief executive.
The shock for virtually all 36 beneficiaries of the ARISE Compassionate Homes lies in how they could be singled out for such turnaround without being mentioned by any political or community influencer. If any of them doubted that miracles still happen, they have in their new realities found the answer from how political, filial and provincial considerations could be dwarfed by the humanity of a leader kind enough to think everyone, regardless of class, as deserving of a touch.
With plans to commence the building of another 164 homes in the second phase, as the administration pushes to actualize its caste of providing 400 homes for vulnerable citizens, amid several other interventions geared towards making life meaningful, it is safe to agree that Governor Umo Eno appears to be in a haste to engender a revolution. Such revolution that would make humanity a famed political opinion, accepted religious inclination and a defining layer of our social construct.
Whether it is about the next election or his next magic, the people are already on the edges of their seats, wondering what his next move towards exalting humanity would be, but whatever he chooses, no one would doubt Governor Eno’s ability to go every length of the way with the people. As the curtains fall on the administration’s first year, it is already in the prayers of many, that this honeymoon should never end.
Samuel Ayara writes from Ibong Otoro in Abak LGA.