The governments of Akwa Ibom State and Abia have established a road infrastructure partnership to guarantee the accessibility of the roads that connect the two bordering states.
This agreement was made on the weekend after the death of Akwa Ibom First Lady Patience Eno, when Abia State Governor Alex Otti paid his counterpart Umo Eno a condolence visit at Government House in Uyo.
The First Lady’s impactful life speaks for itself, and her passing is a terrible loss for the state and the country, Otti said during the condolence visit, expressing the government and people of Abia State’s condolences to Eno, his immediate family, and the people of Akwa Ibom State.
He urged Eno to carry on with his people-focused projects in spite of the significant loss, promising Abia’s assistance and repairing the roads that connect the two states for the socioeconomic benefit of citizens across the two states.
“We will work collaboratively to fix the roads linking our states for the socioeconomic interest of our citizens, “Otti said.
Eno, who welcomed the governor of Abia State, thanked his immediate family and the Akwa Ibom people for their support and condolences during their time of grief, saying that the kindness they got has been a source of strength.
According to Eno, the deceased First Lady left behind a legacy that will live on forever. She chose her first daughter, Helen Obareki, who was her closest assistant while she was alive, to oversee the First Lady’s office’s operations in order to make sure all of her aspirational goals were maintained.
“We want to thank you first of all, Sir, for not just the visit but all of the calls and encouragement. Like I say to people, the loss of my wife is a lifetime loss. We courted for two years, and we have been married for 38 years. So, forty years is not something one can easily forget. It is like half of me is gone, but she was an accomplished woman. She made an impact, joined me as pastor of our ministry, and did excellently well in managing the women and building homes,” Eno maintained.
On road partnership, Eno assured of his readiness to work collaboratively with the Abia State Government to both expedite federal government intervention on the Ikot Ekpene-Aba road, as well as remedy defective portion of the Ini-Arochukwu road and initiate other actions to ensure accessibility of economically viable roads linking the two states.
“For the road you have talked about, if there are other roads that we can, as two states, collaborate together to work on, I am sure we are prepared to do that. We can look at the road and see how we can partner to work it because, at the end of the day, it is our people who will use the road.
“Aba remains a very strong regional commercial centre for all of us. I will see whatever we can do to ensure that our people have that smooth passage to and fro Aba,” Eno stated.
