Soludo masterminds APGA’s plot in Imo, citing Ikpeazu’s loss in Abia
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Anambra Governor Charles Soludo has teamed up with Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe (Abia South) to fulfil his vow to sack Imo Governor Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the same way it happened to Abia Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ikpeazu lost a senatorial bid earlier this year after serving out two governorship terms.
Uzodinma’s feet are also being kept to the fire by the Labour (LP), whose presidential candidate Peter Obi led other top LP officials to launch the party’s governorship campaign last week in Owerri with a massive crowd of Obidients.
Soludo, a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), stressed in Owerri on Thursday the time has come to end insecurity and bad governance in Imo at the launch of the campaign of APGA governorship candidate Tony Ejiogu.
The APC stole Imo in 2020 but it remains APGA territory and will return to APGA in the governorship election in November 2023, Soludo vowed.
“We are campaigning in Imo because we have been winning in Imo. So there is a need for us to come together and protect our votes. We must go back and take back our land,” said Soludo, represented by his Deputy, Onyekachukwu Ibezim.
“We have done it before. We will repeat it. We will commence enlightenment of our people that it is time again to do what we have done before. The way we did it in Anambra. You saw what happened in Abia State. We will do it in Imo State.
In his own pitch, Abariba reiterated “We chased away that of Abia, we will chase away Governor Hope Uzodimma. It is not only voting. APGA and Imo people, after voting follow your vote and count it and protect it.
“Follow them from the polling unit to the ward, LGA, and finally the state headquarters of the INEC. I beg Imo people to come together and sack APC, vote APGA, the governorship candidate of APGA, to bring good governance in Imo State.”
APGA National Chairman Sylvester Okenwa also insisted that “Imo State is the home of APGA in 2023. APGA won Imo in 2007; Martine Agbaso won [and] in 2011 won with Rochas Okorocha.
“He [Okorocha] went away with our mandate to an unknown destination. Now, a man has come, Tony Ejiogu, to liberate Imo people from bondage. A disciplined man. It is not enough to come out and vote. We must protect it. Failure to do that; they will steal our votes.”
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Rebuilding Imo through secure productivity
“My first charge in the rebuilding agenda is to make our communities livable again,” Ejiogu pledged, according to Vanguard reporting.
“From August 2020 to July 2023, our dear Imo State has experienced 209 violent attacks. No fewer than 289 people have lost their lives to those attacks, while about 100 people have been kidnapped and mostly unaccounted for subsequently.
“These are not just numbers. They are our sons, daughters, fathers and mothers, cousins and uncles.
“Who among you today still sleeps with both eyes closed? Who among you today will invite your friends from across Niger to Imo for your children’s traditional marriage ceremony?
“These simple gestures that define us are now being threatened by the forces of evil.
“My priority is to restore security to our dear state so that we may once again enjoy the simple pleasures of life and feel safe while at it. Do we not brag about the quality of our people today, the intellectuals produced by our state? From science to arts, our people break boundaries and make us proud across the world.
“Imo State has the highest literacy rate at 97 per cent in Nigeria, according to the NBS [National Bureau of Statistics]. The secret to this is that we feed our children well.
Restoring food baskets
“Let me remind you that we cannot disconnect the intellectual capacity of a child from how well he is fed. Yet, today, we face one of the worst food insecurities in our land,” Ejiogu added.
“Sadly, even Ohaji Egbema, Ngor Okpala, Mbaise, Oguta, and Ikeduru, all areas known as our food baskets for generations can no longer produce enough for themselves because of insecurity. “Therefore, we shall set out to make food abundant again, by making it safe for farmers to return to their farmlands, harnessing our agricultural potential fully, and making the right investments so that our people can have more than enough to eat