Udom Gabriel Emmanuel

Udom Gabriel Emmanuel (born 11 July 1966) is a Nigerian politician who served as governor of Akwa Ibom State from 2015 to 2023.

Udom Gabriel Emmanuel was born on July 11, 1966, into the family of Ette Gabriel Emmanuel Nkanang, a native of Awa Iman in Onna Local Government, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

He rose from being a Sunday school leader at United Evangelical Church (QIC) (formerly Qua Iboe Church) to become a bank director.

Emmanuel and his family are strong members of United Evangelical Church (QIC), Nigeria.

Emmanuel served as an audit manager of Price Waterhouse Coopers.

He is an associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria.

He served as chief financial officer of Zenith Bank Plc.

Emmanuel also served as group head of Income Optimization, Financial Control & Strategic Planning Department at Zenith Bank.

He served as general manager of Zenith Bank Plc.

Udom holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Lagos in 1988.

Emmanuel holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Lagos in 1988.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management.

He has attended the Advanced Management Program at INSEAD, France.

He attended School of Arts and Science, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State and obtained Advanced Certificate of Basic Studies (CBS) and Higher School Certificate (HSC)

Udom attended Secondary Commercial School, Ikot Akpan Ishiet, Onna LGA of Akwa Ibom State.

He joined Zenith in 1996 from Diamond Bank Limited and was the pioneer manager of its Lagos Central Branch.

He was in charge of the Telecommunications Sector, Income Optimization and Financial & Strategic Planning Group of Zenith Bank Plc.

He has over seventeen years financial services experience.

He served as an executive director of Zenith Bank Plc.

He is a Chartered Accountant and he trained with Price Water house Coopers.

He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management.

He has attended the Advanced Management Programme at INSEAD, France.

In July 2013, Emmanuel was appointed secretary to the State Government of Akwa Ibom State.

In 2014, Emmanuel contested for the governorship of Akwa Ibom State in a primary election and defeated 22 other aspirants to emerge the candidate of the Akwa Ibom State People's Democratic Party (PDP).

Okon said that the software was new to his office and "there was no extra-budgetary expenditure by the government," however, reporting showed that Akwa Ibom had been using IPSAS software since 2014, the Office of the Accountant General had spent ₦132 million on IPSAS training and procurement, and the Nigerian Governors’ Forum rated Akwa Ibom in the top five states for IPSAS adoption in 2020.

The report stated that the office of the Secretary to the State Government had bought 15 new Toyota Prados for ₦4.864 billion.

Not only was the approved car budget only ₦738 million, when checked by reporters from International Centre for Investigative Reporting, the 15 new cars should have only cost in the range of ₦510 million to ₦612 million.

Emmanuel's SSG, Emmanuel Ekuwem, did not respond to a Freedom of Information request from ICIR about the inflated amount supposedly spent on the cars.

Another questionable expense from the report was the ₦5.04 billion spent on the maintenance of the governor's plane, a Bombardier Global 5000.

He contested for the office of governor in the April 2015 elections on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party.

In 2015, Emmanuel was elected Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

He contested under the platform of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), he won with 999,071 votes to defeat APC's candidate Umana Okon Umana who scored 89,865 votes of the All Progressive Congress and was declared elected by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In the March 9, 2019 Akwa Ibom State gubernatorial election Emmanuel was re-elected as Governor of Akwa Ibom State defeating 44 other candidates in the election.

He polled 519,712 votes as against that of his closest rival Nsima Ekere of the All Progressive Congress party who had 171,978 votes.

And while in office he adopted Tupocracy system of government

In 2020, the Accountant-General of Akwa Ibom State released the state's annual report of audited financial statements for 2019.

Questions were raised based on the reported expenses of Emmanuel along with those of his administration.

Further scrutiny revealed potential corruption and led to calls for reform in budgetary processes.

Originally, Emmanuel's Commissioner for Finance Nsikan Linus Nkan stated that there was nothing unusual about the budget overruns, claiming overruns are common but folding when enquired about the questionable Toyota purchases, saying there could have been an "error somewhere."

The day after a full investigative article on the budget irregularities was published by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, Nkan along with Commissioner for Economic Development and Ibom Deep Seaport Akan Okon, Commissioner for Information and Strategy Ini Ememobong, and Accountant General Uwem Andrew-Essien arranged a press conference where they claimed that the budget overruns and questionable expenses were due to coding errors in International Public Sector Accounting Standards software.