Nigerian professor, entrepreneur, and previous presidential candidate Pat Utomi has described Akwa Ibom State’s Governor Victor Attah as a pacesetter who has attained “immortality”, bringing up the iconic affect of his construction imaginative and prescient.
Mr Utomi, additionally a professor of entrepreneurship at Lagos Business School, assessed this in a Facebook post on Friday after travelling from Ikot Ekpene to Victor Attah World Airport to welcome former President Olusegun Obasanjo for the revealing of a media platform in Uyo.
Reflecting at the adventure, Mr Utomi mentioned the enjoy reminded him of the principles Mr Attah laid all through his eight-year tenure as governor and the way his construction tasks endured to steer the state past his time in place of work.
“I used to be reminded of the root that one respectable, visionary guy of personality, Obong Victor Attah, laid as Governor of Akwa Ibom State, and the end result of his labour, so obvious even within the paintings of his successors, each excellent and dangerous,” he wrote.
Mr Utomi mentioned the enjoy gave him a renewed appreciation of transformational management, in particular the facility to examine a long term past quick political concerns and persevere in pursuing it regardless of opposition.
“Those are the individuals who see the following day and persevere to convey it about, even within the face of made up our minds opposition,” he mentioned.
He added that Mr Attah had “attained immortality, like Leader Obafemi Awolowo, Dr Michael Okpara and Sir Ahmadu Bello,” whilst proceeding to reside merely.
Attah’s enduring legacy
Mr Attah, an architect and flesh presser, ruled Akwa Ibom from 29 Would possibly 1999 to 29 Would possibly 2007, changing into probably the most essential figures within the state’s construction following Nigeria’s go back to civil rule in 1999.
His management pursued primary infrastructure and financial construction tasks, together with organising a world airport, the Ibom Power Plant, creating the Ibom Motels and Golfing Lodge, and making plans an Ibom Deep Seaport. The state later renamed the airport Victor Attah World Airport in 2018 to recognise his contributions to the state.
Mr Attah initiated the Repairs, Restore and Overhaul facility at Victor Attah World Airport. Nonetheless, the venture was once deserted earlier than his successor, Udom Emmanuel, revived it and inaugurated it in Would possibly 2023.
Next experiences confirmed that remarkable development and operational necessities remained underneath Governor Umo Eno, whose management was once nonetheless pursuing a partnership to convey the power into complete operation in August 2026.
Past infrastructure, Mr Attah turned into a outstanding recommend of useful resource regulate and monetary federalism, insisting that oil-producing states must obtain a fairer proportion of earnings generated from their herbal sources.
His advocacy was once in particular noteworthy within the Niger Delta, the place communities and state governments had lengthy demanded extra advantages from petroleum wealth extracted from the area.
The combat over derivation earnings turned into a big constitutional and political factor all through the management of Mr Obasanjo, who was once president from 1999 to 2007, the similar duration Mr Attah ruled Akwa Ibom.
Mr Attah’s marketing campaign for useful resource regulate helped put earnings allocation and the rights of oil-producing states on the centre of nationwide debate. The constitutional idea of derivation supplies for a proportion of earnings from herbal sources to be returned to the spaces from which the sources are derived.
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Past monuments
Mr Utomi’s remarks position Mr Attah’s legacy inside a larger debate concerning the that means of management and the way political efficiency must be assessed after an management leaves place of work.
Via evaluating the previous governor with Awolowo, Okpara and Ahmadu Bello, Mr Utomi urged {that a} chief’s lasting significance lies no longer best within the tasks finished all through his tenure, but additionally within the establishments, concepts and construction pathways that continue to exist him.
Overdue Awolowo, the previous premier of Western Nigeria, was once related to primary social welfare and schooling programmes. Okpara, who led the previous Japanese Area, was once identified for agricultural and commercial construction. On the similar time, Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto, was once a central political determine in Northern Nigeria’s construction and management.
Mr Utomi’s overview is going past the bodily infrastructure related to Mr Attah’s management. It frames the previous governor’s legacy by way of how a ways his imaginative and prescient endured to form the state underneath successive governments.
Alternatively, Mr Utomi’s tribute was once a non-public overview of Mr Attah’s management, slightly than a complete analysis of the previous governor’s report.
Mr Attah, born on 20 November 1938, became 87 in November 2025. His political {and professional} profession has endured to draw public consideration, together with on the 2025 release of a biography chronicling his lifestyles and profession.
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