“Oh my God! What bad news in my ears this morning of the passing to eternal glory of Her Excellency, Pastor ( Mrs) Patience Umo Eno! I couldn’t believe it, but it was true from the press release I had just read.

“I was weeping. I had a headache, my BP was up. I was confused about what to say. My wife was screaming!”

Above were the words with which an elder statesman and former minister of petroleum resources, Chief Don Obot Etiebet, CON, reacted to the sudden death of Akwa Ibom First Lady, Pastor Patience Umo Eno.

Pastor Patience died on Friday, a development that the state government, in a statement by the State Commissioner for Information, Ini Emomobong, described as an “unexpected sunset.”

The Atuekong Anang, a prominent elder of Akwa Ibom, issued a release with his wife, Nike Etiebet, on Pastor Patience’s passing: “The husband, His Excellency Pastor Umo Eno, was at my birthday dinner in Lagos organised by the Petroleum Club Lagos to celebrate me at 80 on Wednesday night, and this calamity happened less than 24 hours thereafter.

“Many of my Petroleum Club members have been calling me to express their surprises and to send their condolences at hearing of the bad news.

“Death is cruel! How can this happen to a good man who loves people and governs with the fear of God with his pastor wife beside him? Death, this is too much of your sting.

“Though inevitable, may it never happen again this way in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Her Excellency, Pastor ( Mrs) Patience Umo Eno was a virtuous woman, worth more than gold and diamonds to her husband. She was loving, caring, and mother to all Akwa Ibomites, irrespective of which political divide you belong to.

“Her programs in lifting the lives of the poor and weak, particularly women, inside the villages by making sure her husband reached out to them with free housing and start-up small business monies were never heard of before in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

“Now, she is gone, never to return. It’s painful and hard to contemplate. We can only mourn. We all shall miss her.

“We can only thank the Almighty God for her life well lived, for her life-changing good works within just the one year her husband is in office.

“We can only pray to the Almighty God to forgive her sins and take her to life everlasting in His bosom.

“MAY HER GENTLE SOUL REST IN PERFECT PEACE. AMEN.”