Civil service in Nigeria is characterized more or less by permanence, anonymity and neutrality. Permanence means that civil servants are career officers and can therefore ordinarily expect to remain in the service for their entire working lives while governments come and go. This permanence is to ensure continuity, a word not very common in the dictionary of past governments Nigeria-wide but personalities like Chief Godswill Akpabio, the governor of Akwa Ibom state has shown that continuity is the bedrock of good governance, stability, a productive Polity and an efficient civil service.

Governor Akpabio believes that something visible and tangible must be left for the younger generation and is achievable through continuity. While it appears many newly elected governors in 2007 were busy leaving projects as abandoned because it was started by previous administrations, Chief Akpabio was harnessing records to be sure the best measures are taken to salvage the project started by previous administration and brought to completion for the benefit of the good people of the state who deserve the service to rendered by so doing.

Entrenched as one of the political agenda of his administration, continuity is a strategic pillar of his agenda for the realization of broad based economic growth which include social development and good governance. The civil service being the machinery through which government implements its policies is designed to meet political aims and provide social services. However, this does not exclude the legislative and the judicial arms of government in the attainment of the objectives for a holistic entity.

Chief Godswill Akpabio on the saddle has gained so much strength from continuity as evidenced in the completion of all ongoing projects of the previous administration and recovery of troubled projects like the airport project, Ibom Power Plant e-library and others still under construction. An understanding that you cannot have continuity in isolation, but through an efficient workforce made the state government to be the first state to pay the 15 percent increase in salary, provision of buses for civil servants, and the 13th month salary which many look forward to collecting in December, branded by the workers as “Akpabiomber” month salary. The state civil servants who the governor described as the “Power Station” are fully recognized in the state as the number one agent of continuity. Chief Akpabio working together with the head of the civil service in the state approved the immediate employment of 2,262 persons across board into the state civil service. In a state like Akwa Ibom where more than half of the workforce are public servants, the populaces truly have experienced administrations of different standards and could easily identify the better when it finally arrived in the person of Chief Godswill Akpabio.

Continuity is an expression of Chief Akpabio’s administrative focus on sustainable development for Akwa Ibom, of making the state outstanding in the comity of states in Nigeria and in the Gulf of Guinea. The Governor has declared the entire Akwa Ibom State his constituency; he readily consults paramount rulers, clan heads, chiefs and elders of all parts of the state when necessary making sure that his administration touches every community. Having done so well already in three years according to the people’s assessment, the royal fathers are very comfortable with the manner he has related with them and sees no reason to doubt a better Akwa Ibom with him at the helm of Affairs.

Chief Akpabio has won the admiration of many through his pragmatic approach to resolving issues and most especially his peaceful administration which has brought unity in ethnicity in the state and in turn productivity and sustainable development to Akwa Ibom state. Though many rivals that do not even measure up had tried endlessly to discredit his administration by peddling lies against him and the state, the web of these prevaricate renditions have been artfully disjointed and fizzled away through the pragmatic display occasioned by the saying that the truth is like pregnancy that cannot be hidden. The achievements of Chief Godswill Akpabio speak for themselves; they are crystal clear to the darkest environment that even the blind can see them.

Different groups and organizations with so many slogans depicting continuity have risen in recent times to show approval and support for Chief Akpabio’s come back in 2011. Continuity brings stability; it is a show of performance and the link to productive governance. Therefore Public servants in Akwa Ibom must be efficient to service the newly found democratic project of stability and survival of the Akwa Ibom polity.

As the state and Nigeria prepares sufficiently for an election that is purpose driven let the public office holders remember that anonymity means that civil servants are expected to work behind the scenes; they place their skills and energies at the disposal of their political masters, who make the final decisions and who receive applause for good work and jeers for bad work and that neutrality means that civil servants are prohibited from having political affiliations; they are expected to faithfully and impartially serve any government in power.