"I was on the street struggling with other people to eat, sometimes from the dustbins" Governor Akpabio.

Governor Akpabio spoke in Eket during the inauguration of a hotel, Sonak, owned by his older brother, Isong Akpabio, a former public affairs manager of Mobil Producing Nigeria.The exact date of the event is unknown, but it is obvious from Mr. Akpabio’s remarks that it happened early in the governor’s first term in office.

“I was on the street, struggling with other people to eat, sometimes from the dustbins,” Mr. Akpabio said.
The crowd could be heard in the background, laughing and cheering on the governor. “I knew that (my brother, Isong Akpabio) having worked in Mobil for a long time and Mobil provided the food, the car and everything for him.”

The Governor’s brother, Isong, was among the numerous aspirants within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party in Akwa Ibom State who contested alongside Godswill Akpabio for the party’s governorship ticket in 2006.
“I felt I knew the people’s problem more than him (Isong Akpabio) that was why I told him wait for me, let me go first as governor,” Mr. Akpabio said, eliciting more laughter from the crowd.

“Yes, I knew the problems of the people. One of the major problems was that even your state capital did not look like a state capital. Another problem was that people were using your children as house-boys and house-helps. The third problem was that when you mentioned your name ‘Ekaette’, people looked down on you.

“So, we worked on those three things; your state capital is now the cynosure of all eyes, your children are now enjoying free and compulsory education, and now when you say you are from Akwa Ibom, people say, ‘oh, welcome and have a seat.”

Governor Akpabio said he doubted if his brother, Isong would have ‘noticed’ the problems of the people if he were to be elected governor since he was so comfortable working in Mobil then.

He told the brother, “Now, after 2015, you can contest (as Governor). They will vote for you, after seeing what you’ve done here”, apparently referring to the hotel that was being commissioned at the event.

Mr. Akpabio said that by the time he finishes his tenure as governor, the governance era in Akwa Ibom would be partitioned into two ‘before Akpabio and after Akpabio’.
Governor Akpabio is widely celebrated in the local media and the Peoples Democratic Party for “governing Akwa Ibom State well”.

But residents say beyond the facade, the poverty and unemployment rate in the state remained among the highest in the country.

Local contractors are routinely ignored for multinationals in the execution of infrastructural projects, and residents complain of huge capital flights from the state.

The largest employer of labour in the state remains the civil service which is already overstaffed.

Most state-owned industries have closed shop and the state is not known to have attracted any substantial investment in spite of Governor Akpabio’s several overseas trip in search of foreign investors.

Worried by the massive poverty in the state, the Anglican Bishop of Uyo Diocese, the Rt. Rev. Isaac Orama, on September 12, 2012, advised Mr. Akpabio to face reality and fight the widespread unemployment and poverty in the state.