ELECT YOUNG, DYNAMIC, RESOURCEFUL PERSON AS GOV, UMEH URGES EBONYI PEOPLE

By NBF News

The National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Sir Victor Ume has stated that it was now time for Ebonyi people to move forward by electing a young, dynamic and resourceful person as their governor, reminding them that, 'Ebonyi should know that the world is moving forward and want modern not ancient administrators.'

To achieve this noble objective, Ume urged the people of the state to vote APGA en mass on the day of the elections and to stand to make sure their votes were counted, saying he had confidence in the assurances given by the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega that 2011 general elections would be free and fair and that every vote would count.

The APGA chairman who was in Abakaliki to flag-off the campaign of Ebonyi State governorship candidate of the party, Frank Ogbuewu, for 2011 elections was accompanied by his executives including former minister of health, Dr. Tim Menakaya, who represented the leader and chairman of the party's Board of Trustees, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, National Secretary of the party, Alhaji Sani Shinkafi, governorship candidates of the party in Abia and Imo states, Reagan Ufomba and Owelle Anayo Rochas Okorocha as well as other members of the party's national and state working committees were among the leaders who led other party faithful across the country to stage a carnival-like road show along major streets of Abakaliki before settling down at Peoples Club field, venue of the event.

Addressing a mammoth crowd at the Peoples Club, Abakaliki field, the APGA governorship candidate and former Nigeria's ambassador to Greece, Ogbuewu, in his manifesto entitled, 'My Social Contract with Ebonyi People' promised to make the state a tourism destination of Nigeria and to wipe out unemployment in the state within two years in office as well as to tackle general infrastructural decay in the state.

He re-affirmed his pledge to serve only one term of four years in office to enable other senatorial zones produce the governor of the state as, according to him, he was only coming to rescue the ship of the state, which he said was currently floundering in stormy economic and socio-political waters under the leadership of his brother and incumbent Governor, Chief Martin Elechi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), also from the Central Senatorial Zone as himself.

'My fellow Ebonyians today marks the beginning of the end of your sufferings, since the past four years Ebonyi people have witnessed a total reverse of developmental process that was in place before the inception of the administration. The government of PDP in Ebonyi State has failed. Not only that, it has underdeveloped all the sectors of the state's well-being, be it health, education, public utilities, infrastructure, agriculture, tourism, etc.'

The guber candidate promised that APGA-led government in the state would rejuvenate the health and education sectors by ensuring that the state teaching hospital and general hospitals in the 13 local government areas were reconstructed and restored to their former glory while primary health centres would be established in the rural communities and the educational system totally overhauled to restore it as the bedrock of any society and springboard for any development.

A senatorial candidate of the party in Ebonyi State, Dr. Emmanuel Onwe stated that APGA represented the aspirations and dreams of the Igbo and boasted that the next administration in Ebonyi State would be APGA's.

APGA guber candidate in Imo, Okorocha, who graced the occasion lamented the deplorable state of infrastructure, especially roads leading to and within Ebonyi State, announced that APGA government in the five states of the South-east geo-political zone would declare a free and compulsory primary and secondary education in the zone, even as he stated that Ogbuewu was an honest and capable person to be entrusted with the management of resources of Ebonyi State.