Akpabio’s wife, Unoma emerges Year 2020 Zik Prize winner

OBINNA EZUGWU

Former First Lady of Akwa Ibom State, Her Excellency, Mrs Ekaette Unoma Akpabio, has emerged winner of the prestigious Zik Prize Award in recognition of her service to humanity.

Mrs. Akpabio, wife of former Akwa Ibom State governor and current Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, was named winner of the Year 2020 Zik Prize in Humanitarian Leadership on account of the impact she continues to make in the society through her many humanitarian initiatives.

Prof Pat Utomi, chairman of the selection committee and member of the Board of Public Policy Research and Analysis Centre (PPRAC), organisers of the award scheme, who announced Mrs. Akpabio’s choice for the award at a press briefing on Wednesday, said she was selected by the board after a rigorous review process.

The Former First Lady, Prof Utomi said, is the Chairperson of The Family Life Enhancement Initiative (FLEI), an initiative that continues to provide succour to the vulnerable in Akwa Ibom state.

According to him, “Since its establishment in 2008 and to date, the initiative has remained committed to its primary objective of uplifting the welfare and economic status of women, children and the underprivileged especially the provision of homes to widows and the homeless.”

Prof Utomi said since the institution of the award scheme in 1995, it has held consistently, annually and has now evolved to become one of Africa’s most respected award schemes.

He gave credit to Board members who over these years have, according to him, shown uncommon zeal and commitment to building and encouraging true leadership across the face of the continent.

“I am delighted to inform you that since 1995 when The Zik Prize in Leadership Award scheme started, a cursory look across our continent shows that the issue of leadership remains a critical challenge in our body polity,” he said.

“We fully understand this and thus remain committed to this noble venture of encouraging and nurturing the most beneficial leadership that can be found on the continent as an embodiment of the leadership values of the Great Zik of Africa in whose honour this award was instituted.”

Mrs. Akpabio who was First Lady of Akwa Ibom from 2007 to 2015, has been at the forefront of women and child right advocacy, be it in political awareness or civic education, and was indeed already silently touching lives before her emergence as First Lady inevitably brought her to the limelight.

Among other things, she is the progenitor of Uyai Iban Akwa Ibom, a platform that brought the women of Akwa Ibom together. She has been a strong supporter of the needy and other underprivileged in the society, paying hospital bills for indigent patients, many of whom she sponsored their medical trips abroad.

The First Lady had also undertaken the responsibility of providing financial support for parents of multiple birth children in Akwa Ibom, even as she has secured freedom of many wrongfully incarcerated children by engaging legal experts to revisit their cases.