Gov Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State has been declared as Pioneer Newspaper Man/Governor of the Year 2017.

The declaration which came after a two-day deliberation by an extended committee of media professionals across the South South region of the country, put together by the management of Akwa Ibom Newspaper Corporation (AKNC) - publishers of Pioneer Group of Newspapers has so adjudged the Governor, considering the region-national impact of his industrialization ingenuity which is bound to change the face and story of the South-South region and the country at large by 2018.

The Pioneer newspaper, established about 30 years ago by the Akwa Ibom State government during the administration of Col Tunde Ogbeha, in adjudging Gov. Emmanuel as the Man/Gov of the Year 2017, is of the resolve that the Governor, besides being the 2nd Governor, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, to attract the most foreign investment into the country and making Akwa Ibom State the 2nd most preferred investment destination in Nigeria in the year 2017, is also the first Governor to establish in the country, within the last two years of the present democratic dispensation, a far reaching and first ever Syringe and digital electric meter manufacturing companies in Akwa Ibom State of Nigeria.

Recalling that the World Bank’s Country Director, during the year 2017, had adjudged Akwa Ibom State as the Best Business Environment in Nigeria; as well as the Vice President Yemi Osinbanjo’s remarks that the Syringe and Electric Metering Company built by Governor Emmanuel will be the nation’s economic “game changers”; the award committee under the chairmanship of Mr Umoette Umoette, the General Manager/Editor-in-Chief of The Pioneer newspaper maintains that the 400 million capacity production of the Syringe Manufacturing Company is a huge feat, as the capacity is three times more than the only other existing Syringe Manufacturing Company in Africa which is located in South Africa.

According to the committee, the rippling and positive effect of the Syringe and Electric Metering Manufacturing Companies alone on the economy of the nation can only be left to the people’s imagination, considering the employment, business and revenue opportunities these companies are bringing to the nations table.

The committee also scored the Governor highly for the recent acquisition of Diapact CRRT Machine for critically ill kidney patients, and the 7th of its kind in Nigeria; as well as the development of the Ibom Deep Seaport which shall be the only seaport to be developed on a natural harbor.

Also on the Governor’s score card, amidst his various other human capacity investment, infrastructural and agricultural revolution in Akwa Ibom State, is his regular payment of salary/pension, despite the paucity of fund during the recession, as this has put him ahead of others.

The committee which also looked into the Governor 's
relationship with the presidency noted remarkably, the choice of the Governor to accompany President Buhari to the EU-AU Summit held towards the end of last year in Abidjan, as well as the selection of the Governor to go visit President Buhari during the President 's medical sojourn in London last year.