...Urges Members to be Hopeful for a Better Year.

Ekid People's Union (EPU), an Akwa Ibom-based apex socio-cultural organisation, has charged governments at all levels to sincerely and speedily actualise, their often avowed commitments, in the new year, towards making life more tolerable and meaningful to the citizens.

In a goodwill message to mark the new year, EPU's President-General, Dr Samuel Udonsak, however urged the people to have a renewed hope for a more refreshing and fulfilling life experience in 2021 notwithstanding that Year 2020 had brought untold hardship, via economic devastation, social dislocation, infrastructural decay and grave global health challenges, that have no doubt resulted in unimaginable loss of hope.

Udonsak therefore reasoned that one way to restore lasting hope in the citizenry is for the governments to prioritise and focus on potentially impactful projects and programmes that will make life worth living.

He charged the Federal Government to be alive to its responsibility of securing the nation, by checking the carnage, kidnappings and banditry in some parts of the North and urged the Akwa Ibom State government particularly, to use 2021 to complete most of the laudable projects that it commenced way back in 2015.

Udonsak acknowledged the good intentions of government in initiating the yet to be completed projects, like the Eket-Ibeno Road, Atabong remodeling, China Market, Idua Road, Edem Udo , Klinic Road extension, Odio Road, Ikot Ukpong Road, Eket Sports Stadium, among others, all in Ekid Nation; but, posited that failure to complete them would defeat the lofty aims behind their initiation.

Udonsak further counselled that passing uncompleted projects to incoming administrations were behind the ill and poor relationships often experienced between predecessors and successors in the past and insisted that the EPU would not subscribe to any exaggerated desperation to plant a successor in the veil guise that the successor would be the one to complete the projects abandoned by its predecessor.

Still, EPU assured its teeming members that the new year will change the fortunes of Ekid Nation for the better, expressing the hope that potentially viable issues like the establishment of AKOPADEC (Akwa Ibom Oil Producing Areas Development Commission), the inclusion of Ekid Nation in the oil and gas free trade zone and the proper delineation of costal boundaries would receive positive outcomes in the coming year.

Although 2020 was generally adjudged as one of the most difficult years yet, EPU expressed gratitude to God for sustaining the Nation, Akwa Ibom State, Ekid Nation and the citizenry. He expressed regret for the loss of valuable lives of some Akwa Ibom people in 2020, particularly to Covid-19, and condoled with the families of the departed souls.

EPU observed that the ongoing global pandemic has challenged man to reflect on the deeper values of life and humanity, as it still affirms the supremacy of God in the affairs of man.

The body however called on everyone to support the government in its efforts to reboot the economy that has been ravaged by covid 19 while pleading for the continuous observance of all the necessary protocols of social distancing, personal hygiene, face masks and hand washing to help check the spread of the novel covid 19 virus, which recently developed a more dangerous strain.

Finally, the EPU wishes all Nigerians at home and in the diaspora a peaceful and prosperous new year.