Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom state has listed his achievements after six month at the rein of affairs in the state.

Speaking on Sunday, November 29, in a radio broadcast, Governor Emmanuel mentioned successes of his six months old administration to include the reactivation of Peacock Paint Industry in Etinan, the rehabilitation of roads across the state and the payment of 10 years arrears of pensions and gratuities to primary school teachers and local government employees in the state, Premium Times reports.

According to the governor, his predecessor, Senator Godswill Akpabio did well for the state after eight years in power, but he has done better after six months.

Governor Emmanuel said that Akpabio took Akwa Ibom people out of Egypt to the Jordan River while his own administration is taking the people across the Jordan River into the Promised Land.

He said: “Those who oppose my administration have claimed that we are an appendage of the last administration.

“That is not true. We are an improvement on the last administration.

“They claim that the administration was wasteful, irresponsible, corrupt etc. and this sounds like cutting your nose in order to spite your face.”

Commenting on the cancellation of the April governorship election in 18 out of the 31 local government areas in the state by the election tribunal, Governor Emmanuel said that he wasn’t afraid of a re-run.

He said: “I am the custodian of the hopes, aspirations and dreams of this generation of Akwa Ibomites and the difference between me and the opposition is that he I’m chasing the dreams of Akwa Ibom people, while the people in opposition were chasing their own selfish dreams.

“As we move forward, let mischief, hatred and divisive tendencies be replaced by unity, love, and good neighbourliness.”

However, Governor Udom Emmanuel’s remarks contradict a report by a Lagos-based group, Centre for International Advanced and Professional Studies (CIAPS), ranking the governor as one of the lowly performed governors in October 2015.

The poor rating of Governor Udom Emmanuel by CIAPS has been however dismissed as false and misleading by the state government.

Governor Udom Emmanuel had been declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner in the April 11 governorship election.

However, it was reported that the election was allegedly marred with violence, harassment of voters, hijacking of election materials among many others which led international and local observers to pass an unanimous verdict that it was a sham and recommend a complete cancellation of the exercise.

According to the APC, there was no election in the state and its candidate, Umana Okon Umana, had to challenge the victory at the tribunal seeking a cancellation of the purported election.