By RismadarVoice Reporter,November 26, 2025
Akwa Ibom State Governor, Pastor Umo Eno, has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to ensuring meaningful profitability and increased earnings from the state’s agricultural sector by intentionally separating agricultural business investments from social welfare interventions.
Governor Eno made this known while speaking with Government House correspondents after inspecting the ongoing renovation of the Akwa Ibom State Agricultural Development Programme (AKADEP) headquarters in Uyo.
He explained that his administration has created an Agricultural Business Unit dedicated to driving serious agribusiness ventures that will generate significant revenue for the state.
“Agriculture is big business. Its social investment is quite different from its business investment,” the Governor said. “What our Ministry of Agriculture is doing is purely social, free or subsidized distribution of seedlings and farm inputs. But when it comes to tree-crop planting, equipment leasing, or model farming, that is business investment.”
Governor Eno stressed that the state will no longer commit resources to ventures simply because they fall under government operations, especially when such enterprises can be run profitably by the private sector.
“We have to separate agricultural business from agricultural social welfare in order to drive meaningful earnings for the state,” he stated.
According to him, repositioning agric-related enterprises as viable business ventures is essential to increasing internally generated revenue and safeguarding the state’s financial stability in the event of fluctuating oil allocations from the federal government.
“For our state to be economically viable and financially self-reliant, we must revitalize and sustain all our business investments. We must turn all these assets of ours into income-yielding assets and run them professionally for our good,” he emphasized.
To further reinforce this vision, the Governor announced the appointment of Pastor Godwin Ukwat as Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Agric Business. Until his appointment, Pastor Ukwat served as Executive Director, Agric Investment.
Accompanying the Governor on the inspection were the Deputy Governor, Senator Akon Eyakenyi; Secretary to the State Government, Prince Enobong Uwah; Executive Assistant and Chief Delivery Advisor, Mr. Aniefiok Johnson; members of the State Executive Council, and other dignitaries.
