By OFONIME UMANAH
Even before dawn this Tuesday, the internet had started buzzing. From Odukpani, his own local government, to Obudu, in northern Cross River, his fans, followers, admirers, the people whose life he has touched over the years, sent out messages. The messages poured in torrents.
Each message spoke to the character and personae of the man. They spoke to the mien of the man who was, at a time, the youngest serving commissioner in Cross River State. The messages spoke to the large heart, mien, candour and colour of the man generally believed to be large in size and with a large heart. The messages spoke to the affable nature and humble disposition of Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong’s. The messages came in celebration of his 41st birthday.
Ekpenyong may have carried with him a family name that opens doors. But If you ask anyone in Cross River who he is, beyond the title he carries as senator and former commissioner, you are likely to hear at least three words: kind, humble, affable.
His kindness isn’t performative. It shows up in the small rooms — the constituent who walks into his office from Akamkpa, with no appointment, the Odukpani student who needs school fees, the Calabar South market woman whose stall was affected by policy shifts and the Calabar Municipality woman who needs medical intervention. People talk about how he remembers names of constituents from Bakassi and Akpabuyo. Not just of party chieftains, but of aides, drivers, and the security man at the gate. You may think it is a strategy. No. That’s his character.
Colleagues in the National Assembly say he’s the senator who will pause a heated debate to ask if someone had eaten. Staff in his Abuja office and in the senatorial office back home say he’s the boss who notices when you’re quiet and checks in. In a world wired for transactions, those who should know say he operates on relationships.
For Ekpenyong, even as a senator who chairs the committee on NDDC and enjoys a close relationship with the First Family in Nigeria, power hasn’t changed his posture. He still listens more than he speaks. He still credits teams instead of taking the microphone. He carries himself like a public servant, not a celebrity.
It is not just about a young man from a disciplined home, a man who was well trained, groomed and nurtured by his parents. It is also about a man who allowed the words of his father, the senior Asuquo Ekpenyong, to find expression in his character and demeanour. Those who have interacted with him closely say he is exceptionally humble. That humility makes him accessible. You don’t need 10 protocols to have a conversation with him. And because he doesn’t put himself above the work, people trust him to do the work.
He is intentionally affable. To many, “affable,” sounds like a soft word until you see it in the younger Ekpenyong. It’s what allows him to sit with opposing views in political circles and in the senate and find common ground. It’s what makes young people, elders, traders, and technocrats feel like he’s their senator.
His disposition opens doors that arguments can’t. In committee rooms and in communities, people lean in when he speaks — not because he’s loudest, not because he is the tallest, not because he is the wealthiest, but because he’s the most human.
If you’ve ever sat in a room with Senator Ekpenyong, you would discover that he doesn’t enter loudly. He enters fully. There’s a calm about him, the kind that makes people exhale without realizing they were holding their breath.
He is kind in the way that doesn’t keep score. The kind that shows up when the cameras are off. It’s in how he listens — really listens — to the woman at the Watt Market market explaining how policy touches her table, to the young graduate with an idea too big for his CV, to the elder from Afukang who just wants someone to hear them out. He remembers. He follows up. Not because it’s good politics, but because it’s who he is.
But beyond the disposition, he works. This is where his useful energy and wisdom have been spent maximally. Not in noise, but in service. In Cross River and across his Cross River Southern Senatorial District, you can trace his footprints in the places that matter. In classrooms where children now have better learning tools, in health centers that got attention because someone refused to look away, on Calabar roads that connect farmers to markets, and young people to opportunities, in motions and bills where his voice brought wisdom, his footprints are palpable, — not to grandstand, but to solve issues.
His constituents affirm that he has not wasted his first term mandate and have shown indications that they would want him back for a second term in the senate. Every committee sitting, every constituency engagement, every quiet negotiation behind closed doors — he treats it like it counts.
His wisdom shows up as foresight. The ability to see two steps ahead for his people and position them there. His energy shows up as presence. Showing up in communities, following through, and making sure that being a senator doesn’t just feel like an idea, but like a hand that helps.
They do not call him The Standard for nothing. They call him so because he is a man who spent his useful energy and wisdom maximally — for his state, for his senatorial district, for his people. Today is his birth anniversary. And he deserves all the accolades henis getting from across the world.
