BEING THE TEXT OF THE SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY, MR. UDOM EMMANUEL, GOVERNOR, AKWA IBOM STATE ON THE OCCASION OF THE THANKSGIVING SERVICE OVER THE SUPREME COURT VICTORY THAT AFFIRMED HIS VICTORY AT THE POLLS- WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016, AT GODSWILL AKPABIO’S STADIUM, UYO.

FORWARD EVER, BACKWARD NEVER!

Fellow Akwa Ibomites,

Let me begin this speech by wishing my wife, our dear First Lady, Her Excellency, Mrs. Martha Udom Emmanuel a Happy Birthday! Thank you darling for all your love and support, you are indeed, one in a million.

To God be the glory! My brothers and sisters in the Lord, I stand here before you today humbled by the grace of the Almighty God upon my life and that of my family, the grace of God upon the collective will of this state; I stand here emboldened by His love, focused by his mercies, defined and shaped by his strength.

A little over a week ago, the opposition had written us off as endangered political species. Some political pundits and opposition media had wildly dismissed our political future as hanging by the thread, if not on life support. The opposition had started to measure the drapes and the colors of furniture at the Hilltop Mansion. Some fair-weathered politicians, dancing to their selfish tunes had adjudged us politically dead. They had composed funeral dirges for us politically.

When they decamped to the other side, they did so mouthing the most vile and morally objectionable rhetoric. There were no areas that they didn’t touch with their propaganda machine; no lie was too galling, no blackmail was too shocking for them to deploy, every known convention of decency was sacrificed at the altar of political expediency.

They had brought out the knives and the cudgels and trained them behind our backs, ready to strike, but they got it all wrong! While they wrote us off politically, the God that we worship- the Supreme God, the God of justice was writing another chapter for us; his all-conquering wings were stretched mightily over us, providing us shield against the darts and arrows the opposition had thrown at us.

While they flooded the media space with all manner of satanic propaganda, the good Lord we worship, sitting in His exalted temple was writing a verdict of fairness, of justice and equity. Today, we stand in His throne of Grace to praise him for using our revered the Supreme Court to give us victory and shaming the antics and machinations of the wicked and their polarizing tendencies.

Let me use this opportunity again to salute our judiciary for living up to its billing as the temple of justice and the hope of the oppressed and the maligned. Our Supreme Court has restored our hopes and faith in our nascent democracy and in the process deepens its culture and ethos. Like its counterparts elsewhere have done, it has brought a stabilizing effect on the polity and its rulings represent the last words on the issues of the electoral tribunals.

In 2000, it had the last word in what was shaping up to becoming a Constitutional crisis arising from the 2000 Presidential elections between Al Gore, the Democrat and G. W. Bush the Republican. In Nigeria, in 2016, our Supreme Court also had the last word and in the process averted what may have been a most contentious re-run election ever in our political space. We salute our eminent justices for dispensing justice and for saving our democracy.

Permit me to use this opportunity to warn those who are lampooning and impugning the integrity of our judiciary to seize and desist from walking this slippery slope. Certain institution of governance should be off limits in our naked desire for power. Demonizing such institutions can be counter-production to our growth as a nation. We should not selectively applaud the judiciary when we receive favorable ruling and then cast aspersion on the same institution when we don’t get our desired result.

As I stated in my broadcast to the state last Wednesday, I enjoin my brothers and sisters form the other side of the political divide to close ranks and join me to build a state where development would be impactful and expansive and where the quality of life our people would be enhanced. They all had the right to aspire to political office, but in political contest, one side must win, and when that happens, the losing side should be gracious enough to concede defeat and congratulate the winning side.

Resorting to vile propaganda and character assassination, of manufacturing lies and falsehood in order to sway and confuse the populace should be avoided. Our democracy will not deepen nor its culture entrenched and internalized when we see politics as blood sport, or when losing an election, a wall of division is erected and all manner of unsanitized colors are painted of the winning side. They should know that political foes of today may be political allies of tomorrow. We should all be invested in the Akwa Ibom Project and work for its success in its entire ramifications.

As for me, I stand here again today to thank and salute the great and good people of Akwa Ibom State for the steadfast support and prayers during the past eight months, and again to restate my readiness to work for you day and night to build a state where everyone would be stakeholders, where the abiding value would be to selflessly deploy all resources within our reach to move our people and state forward; to create the right environment for the unfurling of the ‘can-do’ spirit, the ‘dakkada’ spirit.

In spite of the distractions of the past eight months, we have kept our eye on the ball and work hard to lay the foundations for the development of our state in line with our Five Point Agenda of my electioneering Platform, which comprises: , Infrastructural Consolidation and expansion, Wealth Creation, Economic and Political Inclusion, Poverty Alleviation and Job Creation.

Now that those distractions are over, I promise you that our central plank of development which rest on industrialization will be pursued with an even deeper vigor, we will not rest until we are able to create opportunities for employment for our teeming youths; we will not rest until our youths are equipped with the right skills-set for jobs of the Twenty First Century, we will not rest until our women are provided the tools to expand their trade and be able to support their husbands as they build homes full of well-rounded and productive children, we will not rest until every child is educated and made ready to fulfill his or her God given potentials; we want to create a state that would be a model of development, a city state and with your support and prayers, we will get there.

I thank and salute the members of our great legal team for the wonderful work they did. The people of Akwa Ibom State are proud of you and God will continue to nourish and expand your intellectual coast.

Let me also thank our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) especially our Chairman, Obong Paul Ekpo for being resilient and steadfast in spite of the machinations of what the Americans call ‘political jo-jo-s,’- those who dance back and forth as the political winds blows. Our party is alive and well, thanks to your great leadership skills.

I want to thank our media for standing up to the truth and pointing out through numerous news, features; op-ed articles on the need for equity, fairness and justice. You are indeed a major plank of our democracy; we salute you, even though a few among you have sacrificed the tenets and ethics of your noble profession. We will continue to partner with you as we deliver the dividends of democracy to our people.
I want to thank the, members of the clergy for their unceasing payers and the constant reassurance that what the Lord had put a check mark on, no one can reverse. Thank you your Holiness and may God continue to use you all as instruments to bring spiritual succor to mankind.

To the good people of Akwa Ibom State, thank you for you support, your prayers and your abiding faith in me. Your faith and trust will not be misplaced or misused as long as I remain your Servant- Leader.

I want to thank our President and Commander in- Chief of the Armed Forces, Muhammadu Buhari for respecting the principles of the separation of power and for creating the atmosphere for the three arms- the co-equals of government- the Executive, The Legislature and the Judiciary to function harmoniously.

God bless Akwa Ibom state,
God bless Nigeria.
It is well with us all

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Nice speech!