Driving into Uyo, the capital city of the State that is profiled to be the highest producer of petroleum in Nigeria at the moment from Abia State, one of the remarkable features that would stare you very boldly in the face being that you are coming from the South Eastern part of Nigeria which is largely characterized with bad roads, is the quality of well tarred and perfectly paved roads in the town which were majorly constructed by the construction giant called Julius Berger.

While it is a good sight to behold the seemingly well-planned capital city of one of the most important States to the Nigerian politician, something deep within me restrained me from being overly excited at the quality of infrastructure I met in the town of Uyo knowing that it would be wrong to use what happens in Uyo alone to judge how well the political leaders of the State in the past years have used their resources to develop the State in its entirety.

The level of excitement I had at the sight of good roads and flyovers with not well-maintained lawns in Uyo reemphasized how badly my psyche has been damaged as a Nigerian citizen, because if I want to be a bit more sincere with myself, then I should have looked at the quality of development in the State viz a viz the revenue that has accrued to the State from oil over these years that the State has been at the top of the chart of oil producing States in Nigeria.

We must be deliberate not to deploy the “one eyed man being the king in the land of the blind” when it comes to having conversations around how then revenue of Akwaibomites are utilized by their leaders. It is on record and easily verifiable that nations like Saudi Arabia, Jordan and their likes have also used these natural resources to usher their people into a lease of life with an unending possibility of prosperity.

While I must commend the political leaders of the State of Akwaibom which has an approximate population of 7,000,000 , there is a sense in which I must also argue that the people of Akwaibom are not having the best of bargains yet when you place what the State has earned over the years with what the entire State seems to have benefitted. Despite having relatively well-built primary schools around the State for the places I visited, permit me to say that the health care sector of the State as I witnessed especially away from Uyo leaves absolutely nothing to be desired for the supposedly richest oil producing State of Akwaibom.

The essence of the tone of this write up is for us to understand that beyond providing motorable roads, electricity, security, conducive environment for commerce to thrive and other commendable infrastructure for the capital city of Uyo, the leadership of the State must be deliberate to develop other parts of the State.

Akwaibom State has as much as thirty-one Local Government areas with each of these local governments having so much potentials to make the State rich, if effective areas of comparative advantages of these LGAs are mapped out and explored actively.

Driving from the capital city of Uyo to Oron, all I could see were immense opportunities for sustainable development and massive accumulation of revenues for the government if the water body along that axis is explored effectively in terms of aqua products and water transportation.

Despite the relatively motorable road along the Uyo – Oron axis, with much parts of the stretch of this road still under construction, with some portions of the road looking abandoned while some other portions are actively under construction. The Oron boat boarding terminal building, where travelers book their boarding tickets with which to travel, left absolutely nothing to be desired. This boat boarding terminal for travellers who are waiting to board their ferry out of Oron must be fixed if the water transportation along that route must be made more attractive to commuters and the water front infrastructure at Oron must be developed to encourage other players to invest in the sector in the water transport sector. At this moment, I must deliberately commend Sea Express for their services which I must say is relatively okay along this route, such companies must be encouraged to thrive despite the harsh economic realities of the nation at the moment.

The political office holders in Cross River, Akwaibom States and the Nigerian Inland Waterways as a parastatal of government, must fashion out ways to deliberately develop the water transportation options to be able to move light cargo for now, by sea between the two States and by extension the South – South and South Eastern corridors of the nation which would unleash an unimaginable level of economic activities along these corridors.

Therefore, this article is enthusiastic about reminding the political office holders in Akwaibom State that it is wrong to have the major infrastructural development centered on Uyo while there are so many other communities in the State that can be developed and the proceeds of these developments would be most useful in ushering explosive forms of development to all sections of the State.

The reality remains that for the nation’s largest producer of oil with respect to States, it is not a thing to be excited about that only the State capital beams the smile of infrastructural transformation, these resources should be used to develop the State and most importantly invest in human capacity development so that the Akwaibomites who are yet to appreciate how blessed they are as a State would do so and as such pursue worthy career that would rub off on them positively and make their lives better.

While we commend the political class for having done their bit over the years for Akwaibomites in terms of doing their best to develop the capital city of Uyo phenomenally, we must remind the political office holders that it is also not very exciting that a State that ranks highest in the production of crude oil in Nigeria does not yet have majority of its communities being exceedingly developed.

Akwaibom State should be a beehive of economic and tourist activities all year round and not a place known mainly to be where house helps and domestic assistants are recruited from. Akwaibomites who are successful in their various chosen profession must as a sense of service to their State mobilize resources to groom the younger generation and empower them to live out their various God given potentials.