A BREATH OF FRESH AIR

 U.S. Consul General, Will Stevens, is impressed with what is on ground in Akwa Ibom State, writes Banke Ogunleye                        

We might not be happy with the terror alert from the United States. It has caused bad blood between it and the government of Muhammadu Buhari. The Buhari government has not been in romance with the US embassy of late over discomfort of Nigerians living in Abuja and its environs.

But as the tensions persist, something else is happening in Akwa Ibom State. It is not terror but embrace. Not just embrace, but medals. The U.S. consul general, Will Stevens, has all the warm words for the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel. And or good reasons.

He said it was the first state he has visited, and had not been at peace with travelling outside Lagos State. Listen: “It is a real honour for me to visit Akwa Ibom,” he purrs. “This is my first trip outside Lagos and I’m truly impressed.”

He did not just fly to Uyo. His choice of transportation was a tribute to the shepherd of the oil-rich state. “I flew in on Ibom Air and I’m looking forward to another flight in it.”

But Ibom air, the state’s aviation pride and one of the marvels of Emmanuel’s stewardship, was just one of the beauties that the consul general has given thumps up. He was more focused on the governor’s style and substance of governance. He was referring to the way Emmanuel has handled finance and accountability, as a flagship for his peers. “The state leads all other states in Nigeria in creating its public finance plan,” he said. “We are particularly proud of this and hope that your government is also very proud of it,” Consul General Stevens affirmed.

He found this a breath of fresh air. It is poignant for a nation and at a time when corruption rules while the country is bellyaching over the loss of a chunk of its oil revenue to organized crime and a country where one civil servant has not accounted for over N80 billion. Emmanuel, who is known to privilege Christian ethics over mundane morality, has shown the way.

With such credits, it is understandable why Stevens chose Akwa Ibom as his first port of call in all the 36 states in the federation. The state did not have to be large. It did not have to be rich or poor. It did not have to have the large mountain to catch the eye, or the roaring seas to capture the ears. It had to do well, to account to the people, and even as small a state as it is, the United States does not need a big, rumbling giant on the map to notice the work Emmanuel has done as he turns to the last phase of his mandate. Hence the United States prioritises work with Emmanuel and his state.

“Akwa Ibom State is one of the first partners in Africa that has improved on fiscal transparency,” he noted.

He identified health, public accountability and fiscal transparency.  What he implied is that there is no opaque accounting in the work of his capital projects, nothing to hide in the earth or in the sky about Ibom Air, nothing in the shadows or in the sky with the Dakkada Tower, perhaps the only building that can sniff the clouds in the region. No fear of crime in the sprawling infrastructure work changing the landscape from the city of Uyo to the borders of Abia State or the shoulders of Cross River into the entrails of the rural areas.

Public accountability could look good without fiscal transparency. One can becloud the other. One can upstage the other. You can make your public accounting spick and span, give the people figures, calculate for them the numbers with benumbing charm of apparent accuracy. But if there is no fiscal transparency, the public would not know that some amount of subterfuge is at work. Fiscal transparency is the root, and if one does not know how the root works, it is problematic. We do not know the soil composition and nourishment. One can be deceived with the shoots and flowers. But if we know the fiscal facts, we can compare them with the public record, then reconciliation can be effected.

What Stevens said is that both fiscal material and process and public record cohere. It is the mark of integrity. Hence, he scored Emmanuel as the first among his peers.

One of the areas that interests Stevens is health care, of course, partly because it is a project his government has worked with Akwa Ibom. He picked out the stride in the approach to HIV/AIDS.

Here is what he says. “I wish to note some of the wonderful things that have happened under the governor’s leadership and the leadership of my predecessors. Some of the work have been in the health arena where we have worked hand- in- hand to combat HIV aids.

“This state has moved from just 12% of people who were on treatment to about 95% which surpasses the UN goal for control of epidemic. This truly has been recognized as something to be celebrated.”

Health and education, noted the Roman Historian Tacitus, are two markers of a great citizenry. Stevens noted that Udom has made the country proud.

Emmanuel did not waste the opportunity to express one major complaint against the U.S. He urged Stevens to use his influence to influence the giant Exxon Mobil to put an end to the endless gas flaring in the state. It is not only a great waste of resources, especially in an era where Europe is smarting from the lack of gas supply because Russia turned off its pipeline. It is prosperity frittered away. It also damages the atmosphere.

It is an issue that is sure to attract the attention of the COP27 meeting in the next few days. This is the sort of cooperation we need between the US and Nigeria, where information is shared. No public rancor can solve an issue when private dialogue is necessary. Emmanuel made that possible without noise but with competence and vision.

Ogunleye writes from Uyo