My first encounter with Akwa Ibom State was in 2005, a time when Uyo was a city still being molded, dusty, muddy, and yearning for the future.
Everywhere I looked then, construction roared and dreams took shape in cement and sand. The heartbeat of a vision was palpable, even amid the roughness.
Two decades later, as my flight lifted off from the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos aboard Ibom Air, I wondered what awaited me at the other end. Would the dust have settled? Would the dreams have blossomed into reality?
Touching down in Uyo was like stepping into a dream realised. Before me stretched wide six-lane highways, meticulously paved and crowned with the proud letters of ARISE at the airport roundabout, a bold declaration of the state’s five-point agenda: Agricultural Revolution, Rural Development, Infrastructural Development, Security, and Education under the visionary leadership of Governor Pastor Umo Eno.
Gone was the mud and confusion. In its place stood a vibrant, orderly city breathing with modernity. Uyo, and indeed all of Akwa Ibom, had been transformed into a traveller’s paradise.
Journeying from Uyo to any part of the state is now a thing of ease and joy, rarely stretching beyond an hour. A marvel I could only wish to replicate across all corners of Nigeria.
Venturing beyond Uyo revealed a land stitched together with pristine roads, each roundabout a sculpture of pride, some with majestic fountains, others adorned with artistic monuments that tell the story of a people rooted in culture yet soaring into the future.
Akwa Ibomites are some of the most hospitable souls I’ve encountered, their warmth woven into the very fabric of their daily lives.
My camera became an extension of my soul as I captured landscapes that seemed untouched by time, yet refined by thoughtful human hands. From the rolling greenery to the architectural wonders, every frame whispered a testament of intentional progress.
One cannot speak of Akwa Ibom without mentioning its audacious investment in tourism and the MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) industry. The crown jewel among these is the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel in Ikot Ekpene, a ten-story marvel offering a breathtaking 180-degree view of lush untouched forests meeting endless horizons.
In Uyo, the 30,000-seater Ecumenical Centre, the dazzling Godswill Akpabio International Stadium, the serene ARISE Park, and a litany of other cultural monuments stand as vibrant witnesses to a government’s commitment to build, to beautify, and to believe.
Beyond Uyo, the treasures only deepen. Ibeno’s alluvial sands, ripe for glassmaking, and its sprawling beach, where oil platforms glisten like sentinels over the Atlantic, offer a rare marriage of nature’s purity and industrial grandeur.
Companies like Seplat have etched their footprints here, yet the spirit of the ocean remains untamed, majestic.
Akwa Ibom has cracked a code. The rest of Nigeria is still struggling to decipher: that tourism is not a luxury but a vital engine of growth.
Through strategic investments in infrastructure, hospitality, aviation, and cultural preservation, the state has positioned itself not merely as a destination but as a story, one that every Nigerian should know and experience.
As I drove, photographed, and marveled, my heart swelled with a prayer: that one day, smooth highways, soaring ambitions, and proud heritage would knit themselves across all of Nigeria, just as they have here.
Akwa Ibom is no longer Nigeria’s best-kept secret. It is a call to action, a song of hope, and a canvas on which the nation’s brightest dreams have already begun to be painted.
And as I close my lens after this unforgettable journey, I know this:
Akwa Ibom has imprinted itself upon my heart, a land where dreams are carved into the hills, and hope flows with every river and breeze.
It is a living canvas of beauty, resilience, and grace, a place where every sunrise promises new wonders, and every sunset lingers like a sweet, unending song. In Akwa Ibom, I found not just photographs but poetry written by the hands of time and the spirit of a proud people.
And I will return, again and again, to be lost in its embrace.
**Adedayo is a photographer and creative entrepreneur