From Charity Nwakaudu, Abuja
Prof Gregory Ibe, governorship aspirant of Abia State under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has promised to ensure that the people of Abia enjoy good dividends of democracy if elected.
Prof Ibe, speaking with journalists shortly after screening at the party’s headquarters in Abuja, yesterday also promised to increase youth and women participation, adding that poor leadership is the main challenge in Nigeria.
He stressed that when elected, his administration will make sure that no community or individual would be left out in the delivery of dividends of democracy.
He said; “So far as Abia state is concerned it would be wrong for anybody to throw up a 2, 3 or 4 point agenda because there is a total rot in the system. So you have to start with the essentials of man; what people require, and then you move into developmental issues. I am a deployment-minded person, I consulted for UNDP and ECOWAS, so I consult for the federal government which means that I know how to Graduate Development.
“My vision is clear about good governance, to ensure that no community, no child is left behind because up till now people are being left behind due to one reason or the other.
“I own Gregory University, Uturu. And that is where the Youths hibernate, is it not? And I have been a lecturer at Abia State University. This means I am a youth equally. If I must quote the politicians, they said ‘the youth of Nigeria begins from 47 to 67, which means I am a youth so I cannot deny my fellow brothers and sisters the opportunity to grow wealth. So every youth must have to learn how to grow and I’m a professor of Entrepreneurship so their pains are my pains and they can be sure that wherever I am, wherever they are, I will meet them with the actual mandate of making sure that we all get liberated and then we move from the level we are to the next point where they can feed and get married as at when due.
“An opportunity given to a woman is an opportunity for the community. When I was building the UNDP skill centres across 774 local governments, we were making sure that gender-sensitive issues were being taken care of. So if you go to all the skill centres I set up in the whole country, you see that in every local government we consider the gender which is critical to all of us. I have written books on weaving. I have written books that have taken care of gender, hairdressing, fashion designing, and cosmetology, so I will deploy those books towards empowering them because when you empower one woman you have empowered the world.
“In Nigeria, leadership recruitment has been a problem and as soon as we get it right then things can happen. But the recruitment process keeps on bringing mediocrity into the system. Now that people like us have decided to join the force, we believe that the country will give us the opportunity so that we will make the country what to expect or to be comparable with overseas, ” he said.
Darlington Chube on behalf of the aspirant presented two Siena buses to the national leadership of APGA to solve its logistics challenges as well as play a role in the effective running of the party.