PROFILE OF RT HON. ONOFIOK LUKE

Rt. Hon. Onofiok Luke is the Speaker of
the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly.
He is a foremost youth leader, and a

social equality advocate. His leadership
interests are chiefly in education and
economic empowerment of women and
youths for sustainable development. As a
two-term member of the Akwa Ibom state
House of Assembly, he has served
variously as Chairman of the assembly’s
committee on Appropriation and Finance,
committee on Agriculture and Natural
Resources, committee on Judiciary,
Justice, Human Rights, and Public
Petitions, among others. For three years,
he led deliberations on state budget
proposals, oversaw the activities of the
state’s ministry of finance, probed the
fiscal conduct of government, and led the
review of the conduct of the State Budget
Office.
He spearheaded the introduction of the
practice of participatory budgeting in the
Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly in
2012, an effort to ensure a more
transparent and people-centred budgeting
process in the state. As Chairman of the
Agriculture and Natural Resources
committee of the House, Hon. Luke
worked with farmers in Akwa Ibom to
initiate laws to give legal backing to
sustainable initiatives on farm produce
preservation and storage.
Prior to his election to the state
legislature in 2011, he served as Personal
Assistant to the Governor of Akwa Ibom
state on Protocol Matters. He was later
elected the pioneer Speaker of the Nigeria
Youth Parliament, a national leadership
and mentoring platform coordinated by
the Federal Ministry of Youths and the
National Assembly. In his capacity as
Speaker of the youth parliament, he led a
team of Nigerian youths to initiate the
call for the adoption and execution of the
National Youth Employment Action Plan
(NAYEAP).
Upon winning election to return to the
House for a second term, he was
nominated as Chairman, Committee on
Judiciary, justice, Human Rights and
Public Petitions. His responsibility as
head of the committee was primarily the
screening of nominees for high level
government appointments. He later served
as Chairman of the House’ committee on
Education before he was elected as the
11th Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State
House of Assembly.
Onofiok Luke has represented Nigeria at
several youth development fora locally
and at continental level. He represented
Nigeria at the World Youth Conference in
Mexico, 2010. In 2014, he was one of the
African youths selected across the
continent to come up with a draft
resolution towards ending violence on the
continent by the year 2020. He also
served in the Nigeria Vision 20:2020
Special Interest Group.
Onofiok runs two schemes to empower
youths and women as part of his
constituency development projects. They
are the Constituency Transport Scheme
(CTS) and the Seed Capital for Business
Start-up (SCBS). The schemes have in the
last four years economically empowered
hundreds of households across Nsit
Ubium state constituency which he
represents in the House. He is also the
founder of The Onofiok Luke Legislative
Internship Programme (TOLLIP), Nigeria’s
only stipendiary internship programme
designed to train youths on legislative
basics, entrepreneurship, community
development and volunteerism, as well as
conflict resolution.
Onofiok holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law
from the University of Uyo and is a
graduate of the Nigerian Law School. He
is an alumnus of Harvard Business
School, Executive Education programme.
He is a member of the Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) and a 2010 associate
fellow of the Nigeria Leadership Initiative
(NLI).
He is passionate about Information and
Communication Technologies (ICTs),
rights advocacy, and writing.