•Unveils manifesto
The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia State, High Chief Ikechi Emenike, yesterday unveiled his manifesto to further assure the people that he had plans to engender a holistic development of the state.
He presented a 28-page document to reporters, party leaders and chieftains.
Emenike’s running mate, Mrs. Gloria Akara and Abia APC Chairman, Dr. Kingsley Ononogbu, attended the ceremony held at his Umukabia Okpuala country home.
The governorship candidate outlined his plan of action to actualise his mission “to rescue and develop Abia (RADA).”
He said the state had remained stagnated because the right route to development had not been followed by successive leaders.
“Abia can change and Abia will change,” he said, adding that a state that had found itself in Abia’s parlous condition “needs to be rescued” first before it could be reset for sustainable, holistic development.
Explaining his vision for Abia, Emenike said it had always been his dream for Nigeria to join the league of developed countries, adding that “nothing stops Abia from charting its own course to development if the nation as a whole fails to move forward.
“If Nigeria persists in its underdevelopment, I shall determinedly lead the charge for the emergence of a first world state, even in a third world country,” he said, adding: “We shall propel the state into a fresh highway of socio-economic development.”
The envelopment economist signified his readiness and well thought out plans to rescue and develop Abia by itemising 23 “key deliverables for 2023” spanning every sector of the Abia economy.
He fielded questions from reporters and explained every detail of his plan, saying “Abians will be the means (agents) and the end (beneficiaries) of our economic development efforts or projects”.
According to him, the Abia dream has two components of “striving to enable every citizen of Abia State live a flourishing life (while) the government and the citizens will work together to ensure every generation in the state enjoys better (higher) standard of living than the ones before it.”
The Abia APC standard-bearer said he would adopt a new approach to governance and not follow the old way of doing things, which had yielded no positive result for the state.
He promised “to lead by example, demonstrating discipline, hard work, integrity and unwavering commitment to the new Abia State, saying “we shall ensure high moral, ethical, competent and godly standard in governance.”
Emenike said Abia had been moving in a vicious cycle of underdevelopment because those piloting the affairs of the state lacked ideas of how to get things done the right way to achieve good results.
He lamented a situation where the budget of Abia had remained low over the years without the leaders doing anything to grow it to meet the development needs of the state.
The governorship hopeful said anybody in the seat of power in Abia who thinks he can develop the state with the present budget size of less than N200 billion will be embarking on a voyage of self-deceit.
He promised to grow the budget of Abia by as much 200 per cent and also ensure that public funds are used for the public, hence embezzlement, misappropriation or diversion of public will not be tolerated.
Emenike urged ‘Abians’ to rise up and join him to rescue and develop Abia movement, saying since there was a consensus that Abia was in a parlous state, no one should sit on the fence.
He urged every ‘Abian’ of voting age to demonstrate their anger against perpetrators of bad governance by coming out to vote for good governance.
“March 11 is an opportunity for languishing workers and pensioners to make a positive statement with their votes,” Emenike said.
