Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State has directed the immediate release of an additional N1.5 billion for payment of outstanding gratuities of retired workers in the State.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr Ekerete Udoh, who broke the news, said it was a further confirmation of the Governor’s resolve to fulfill his pact with workers in the State.
During his campaign, Pastor Eno had promised to continue paying backlog of gratuity from where his immediate predecessor in office had stopped.
Before the current release, N5.3 billion had been released by the Governor for retired workers in the State, an attestation to the Governor’s humane disposition to the people of the State.
Few weeks ago, an additional one month salary otherwise called 13th month, or “Enomber” was approved for civil servants in the State, to bring Christmas cheers.
Governor Eno has, in under six months in office, touched on the critical pillars of the ARISE Agenda, especially in rural development, education, healthcare, security and infrastructural maintenance
Meanwhile, Akwa Ibom State has emerged the overall second best, after Lagos State, and one of the model States in the campaign against gender-based violence (GBV) in Nigeria.
This was contained in the Womanity Index Report launched on December 4, 2023, in Abuja, Nigeria by Invictus Africa and BudgIT Foundation.
The Womanity Index Report utilized quantitative and qualitative data collection and research approaches, and assessed subnational government’ commitment to GBV prevention and response using indicators across five indexes, Laws and Policies, Access to Legal Justice, Support Services, Information and Awareness, and Budget and Spending.
States are ranked using colour codes, both overall and individual index.
Akwa Ibom State was ranked across the five indexes as follows, Laws and Policy – Blue (Excellent), Access to Legal Justice – Yellow (Fair), Support Services – Yellow (Fair), Information and Awareness – Green (Very Good), Budget and Spending -Green (Very Good), and its Overall Ranking was Green (Very Good)
It was ranked GREEN along with Bauchi, Bayelsa, Delta Edo, Ekiti, FCT, Kaduna and Ogun states.
Only Lagos State was ranked Blue. It was the shining example for other States of the Federation to follow as far as SGBV Prevention and Response is concern.
The Womanity Index shows gaps in the implementation of SGBV Prevention and Response even among the Blue, Green, Yellow and Red States.
This implies that Akwa Ibom State still has lots of room for improvement despite the great progress recorded since COVID-19 on SGBV Prevention and Response in State.
Akwa Ibom State Government got interested in GBV response and prevention in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic through the effort and political will of the immediate past First Lady of Akwa Ibom State, Dr. Mrs Martha Udom Emmanuel and the Akwa Ibom State GBV Management Committee.
The gaps revealed in this report however calls for more action to improve on those indexes, Akwa Ibom State has done well but must take further steps to do excellently well.
