By David Augustine
It
was a Tuesday afternoon, the day was 5th June 2007; the
venue was the Executive Chambers and the occasion was the
swearing in ceremony of Governor Akpabio's first political
appointees. One of such striking appointments was the
appointment of the Secretary to the State Government, a
strategic position that could make or mar any government. On
hand to take the oath of office that fateful day was the man
Obong Umana Okon Umana.
The Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, to underscore the
importance of the position told the appointee and those who
had gathered to witness the ceremony that the appointment
was made purely on merit. He used the occasion to extol the
qualities of the man that had just been saddled with the
responsibility of the young administration's hub of
activities. He described Umana as an astute administrator, a
man of experience, a man imbued with intelligence and above
all, a focused man of integrity. Coming from Chief Godswill
Akpabio himself, those were no mere words.
They were words of sincerity and truth. Chief Akpabio,
himself a goal-oriented administrator, one with uncanny
drive zeal, could sport excellence a million miles wherever
he sees one.
With his appointment as the Secretary to the State
Government, Umana Okon Umana has ever since represented two
basic things in the current dispensation. He represents a
major bridge of continuity between the past and the present,
and a departure from the past, where such appointments had
some ethnic colourations. Thus giving vent to the
government's determination to build an Akwa Ibom State
devoid of ethnic boarders; a people united by a common
destiny.
One year on, on the saddle, Umana has shone like a million
stars, and in the process attracted a mixed bag of
reactions. To friends, he had lived up to the high
expectation, helping the government not only to stabilize,
but also record the amount of achievements that we have all
rolled drums to celebrate. The administration of Chief
Godswill Akpabio has been a remarkable statement in
dynamism. The vibrant aura that surrounds the government
cannot be divorced from the youthful vigour of the Governor
himself and men like Obong Umana Okon Umana, who has brought
the ideas of efficiency and speed, too great effects of our
modern digital age, into governance. The result is a quantum
leap in the achievements index in the state. To his
traducers on the other hand, his rise and rise has continued
to be a source of discomfiture.
He has become a stumbling block to some interest groups, who
would have been more comfortable with a less focused man and
one without a sense of history. To them whatever it takes to
bring him down would be a welcome development. It was with
such vengeful, spiteful thought that they went to work,
contriving every conceivable and inconceivable attacks and
criticisms against him and his principal.
He remained stoic and resolute in his strive towards the
achievement of the determined goals of the administration.
Umana Okon Umana was born on August 20th 1959 in Calabar, to
parents of Nsit Ubium LGA origin. He completed his primary
education in Edgerly Memorial School, Calabar, in 1971, with
a distinction. That was the beginning of a string of
academic laurels that have marked his entire life. In 1972,
Obong Umana Umana got admitted to the prestigious St Patrick
College, Ikot Ansa, Calabar, for his secondary education. He
sparked all the way in SPACO to another resounding
distinction in the 1976 West African School Certificate
Examinations, winning the college's best graduating student
award.
While in the Secondary School, Umana was not only
academically outstanding; he was also good in sports,
especially lawn Tennis -a vocation that he still maintains
as a hobby.
His leadership abilities were early in those formative years
detected by his teachers who incidentally were mostly
concerned about both the moral and academic attributes of
those appointed into leadership positions as prefects.
The same year he left St. Patrick College, Umana Umana
enrolled into the University of Calabar for a Bachelors
Degree in Economics, a degree he bagged in 1980 with a
Second Class Upper Division. His sharp wit, with a warm
attitude towards people made him a well-sort-after friend to
his fellow students. While he was getting knowledge he had
in mind the words of the English Philosopher, Herbert
Spencer, who said, “education has for its object, the
formation of character”. He was very conscious of every move
he made as a student, preferring to maintain a conservative
visage that helped him overcome the tendencies towards
youthful vices common with students. For his achievement in
the University of Calabar, he was awarded the University's
scholarship on account of his distinguished performance in
1980.
In pursuit of further scholarship, he left for the
University of Port Harcourt in 1984 and 1987 bagged his MBA
in Finance.
Between 1979 and 1980 he was a Research Assistant on a study
on West German Development Aid to Africa, sponsored by the
Munick based IFO Institute for Economic Research. Between
1980 and 1981, he answered the national call to serve as an
Economic Instructor at Gajir City High School for his
National Youth Service Corps Scheme.
Shortly after his NYSC programme, he joined the School of
Basic Studies, Akamkpa, as a lecturer in Economics. His
diligence was easily noticed, as he was to head the Economic
unit in 1988. His friendly, yet firm disposition endeared
him to his students and academic colleagues. He was already
setting down to a life long career in the academic world
when other higher callings came. In 1989, Umana Okon Umana
joined the civil service of Akwa Ibom state as a Principal
Budget Officer in the Budget Department of the Governor's
office.
It was from this office that he started his illustrious
career in the art of public finance. From there he started
seeing himself in the mould of the economist of Alfred
Marshal, who said, “The economist like anyone else must
concern himself with the ultimate aims of man”.
He enmeshed himself in that self same discipline committed
and focused service that have come to be his guiding
principles, in his work at the budget office.
By dint of hard work and an abiding faith in God, he got
appointed on 1st July 1998 as the Director of Budget of Akwa
Ibom State, a position that further exposed him to all the
intricacies of public finance budgeting and economic
development in Akwa Ibom state.
In October 2000, Obong Umana Okon Umana, in just eleven
years, hit the peak of his career as a civil servant. It was
by no means a mean achievement, but considering his
intelligence, diligence, his understanding of his
environment, he was simply on target, on time.
Having operated at the background for so long and having
acquired all the experience and finesse of a finance guru,
the immediate past Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Arc
Victor Attah, appointed him Commissioner of Finance in his
Executive Council. Knowing Obong Attah as a man with an eye
for excellence, it would not be wrong to conclude that Umana
had proved himself capable in his former capacities as
Director of Budget and Permanent Secretary -Budget
Department. It was at this time that all his financial and
administrative wizardry were called to attention. Former
Governor Attah had, in his zeal to develop the state, mooted
the idea of several projects. Then, the tragedy that was the
politics of onshore/offshore dichotomy cropped up. The State
lost its pre-eminence in revenue accrual, and with it the
need for a more prudent yet efficient budgeting became
apparent. That was the crowning glory of this excellent
administrator's career. He managed the budgetary and
budgeting profile, though there were noticeable effects of
the oil dichotomy on the state's economy, there was no time
the economy got to the point of any major crisis. He held on
tenaciously until things improved.
As a Commissioner, and one that had the budgeting experience
of the lean years of the economy, his watchword was
prudence. He harnessed the State's resources with such
masterly ability that a lot of grounds were covered in terms
of project implementation and funding of major projects in
the state.
In the course of his service to Akwa Ibom state, this
consummate chess player had served at various times as the
Chairman, Steering Committee -Akwa Ibom State/World Bank
Community Based Urban Development Project. He was the
Chairman of Governor Attah's highly successful
Inter-Ministerial Committee on Direct Labour Jobs. He also
served as chairman Inter-Ministerial Committee on
Micro-Credit in 1989. Fresh in service, he was appointed as
Secretary of Special Executive Council Committee on the
Procurement of Educational Materials. During the IBB
transition to civil rule experiment, he was introduced into
politics as the Administrative Secretary of the Social
Democratic Party in Ikono Local Government Area. In 1994, he
was appointed as Director in Akwa Rubber Estate Limited.
Between 1997 and 2003, he was Chairman, State Programme
Coordinating Committee (SPCC), a UNDP programme. Umana Okon
Umana was in 1997 appointed a member of the State Economic
and Development Planning.
Obong Umana has one basic fault. That fault is his
generosity. His generosity may have been the reason why he
has been one of the many people Chief Godswill Akpabio has
held onto since their membership of the previous
administration. They share this generous trait and best
approximate what saint Ignatius Loyala, the Jesuit
theologian, said of generosity: “to give and not to count
the cost; to fight and not heed the wounds; to toil and not
to seek rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward …”
This selflessness no doubt has contributed to his active
role in the loins International family. In the 1996/1997
lionistic year, he was the President of Ibom Central lions
Club, Uyo. During his tenure, he carried out outstanding
service projects that touched the lives of members of the
less privileged in our society. By 1999, he had assumed the
chairmanship of Region 12, of the International Association
of lions Clubs, District 404, Nigeria.
To further sharpen his administrative skill, he has attended
a number of senior executive management courses in Nigeria
and abroad. Among them is the “Colombia Senior Executive
Programme”, he attended in May 2002, at the Colombia
Business School, Columbia University Graduate School of
Business in New York, USA. Before then in Nov. 2001, he was
in London where he attended the RIPA International's
“modernizing Government”. He was at the “National workshop
on Budget Preparation and Implementation,” organized by the
National Manning Commission in 1997 and the one organized by
the Federal Ministry of National Planning in 1996. In April
1992, he attended the National Center for Economic
Management and Administration Budget for Efficient Economic
Management Course. In 1991, he was a participant of the
Oduduma and Co Management Consultants, organized
Professional Improvement Workshop on Budget and Planning
Skills.
This veracious reader and lover of music has remained a
rallying point for young people not just in his native Nsit
Ubium and Akwa Ibom State, but also all over Nigeria. He,
like his Principal, Gov. Akpabio believes that any
investment in the youths is an investment at the right
direction. He is a Patron of many youth organizations, and
happily plays the role of a mentor to many young people
aspiring to make marks in their various careers.
This lion, and Melvin Jones Fellow, is also a member of
Nigerian Economic Society and a member of Chartered
Institute of Taxation of Nigeria. He holds a personal
philosophy that conforms to what Abraham Lincoln in his
second inaugural speech on March 4th 1865 said of love,
“with malice toward none; with charity for all”. No wonder
the calm and confident manner he has so far tackled
criticisms, bearing in mind the eternal words of yet another
American President, Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said of
criticism and critics, “we know that there are chiselers. At
the bottom of every case of criticism and obstruction we
have found some selfish interest, some private axe-to
grind”.
He holds firmly to his belief in the efficacy of prayers,
and holds even firmer to his belief in the love of God. He
sees the hands of God in everything he has been able to
achieve in life, realizing that the value of life, according
to Michael de Montaingne, “lies not in the length of days,
but in the use we make of them, a man may live long, yet
live very little. Satisfaction in life depends not on the
number of your years but on your will”.
This award-winning administrator has been a source of
inspiration to people who have had the privilege of crossing
his path. He has been one of the most strategic appointments
by the Governor Akpabio administration. One of the most
experienced politicians in the state, Elder Joe Udobia, a
one time Political and Legislative Adviser to former
Governor Attah, in a recent interview said of Obong Umana,
“I salute the wisdom of the Governor in the appointment of
the SSG because the man is an accomplished civil servant who
rose to the peak through hard work. He is a bridge between
the past and the present. He was in charge of the oxygen of
government and I see his appointment as an avenue of
continuity of government projects”. Need we say more?
As we celebrate the success story of the one-year in office
of Chief Akpabio's administration, we celebrate one of the
basic elements in this supersonic administration that is set
to break all records of development in the entire history of
this state, named after the Almighty God himself. We
celebrate this happy family man and his role in the
one-year-old administration of Chief Godswill Akpabio.
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