Governor Ikpeazu’s Three Years Of Hope In God’s Own State

By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP,
Okwubunka of Asa,
State Publicity Secretary, PDP, Abia State.
23rd May, 2018.
The noun; hope, is very significant in the life of an average human-being. By a simple definition or explanation, hope means a feeling of expectation that something of remarkable importance would happen in the course of one’s life or within a given period of one’s social, cultural, occupational or even spiritual engagement.
In most cases, mainly for the positive mind or thinker, hope is synonymous with optimism. Hope manifests itself in different ways. It is hope, anchored in God Almighty, that makes a patient that is terribly sick believe that he or she would recover from his or her illness. It is hope, laced with faith, that propels a General of a less equipped army to hold the battle ground in defence of his fatherland. It is hope that ignites the spirit of adventure in the son of very poor parents to work assiduously in order to break the jinx of poverty.
Hope strengthens the psychology of a leader. It is hope that motivates a leader to look beyond normal obstacles and challenges and forge ahead with his desire to take his people to their appointed destination.
Governor Okezie Victor Ikpeazu’s three years on the saddle of leadership of Abia State of Nigeria has been rooted in hope.
In the first place, the Governor openly expresses his abiding faith in God Almighty. His signature song of ‘obuigh ji onwem, amara ya’ simply denotes that his strength and success come only from the Creator of Heaven and Earth.
Despite being a public servant whose tax was, by laid down procedure and practice, deducted at source and coupled with the fact that tax was not a constitutional requirement for election in Nigeria, Governor Ikpeazu was vainly dragged to the Court severally and bitterly by opponents of the State, starting from the Court of first instance to the Supreme Court. The cases lasted for almost three years.
Even though his heartless, pugnacious and belligerent opponents knew they had no reasonable and justifiable grounds taking the duly elected Governor to Court, their interest was to use the tortuous processes of the Court to distract him from his goal of service to the good people of Abia State who massively voted for him.
Yet, driven by hope, Governor Ikpeazu was able to dare the self induced distractors, simply by ignoring their notorious retrogressive antics and going ahead with the implementation of landmark projects that are fast changing the face of Abia.
In the political history of Nigeria, no Governor had gone through the path of hostile experience as Governor Ikpeazu went through and came up with projects that can be pointed at. His case is a classical example of what hope is capable of doing.
Governor Ikpeazu has impacted meaningfully on the people of the State, using his five pillars of Agriculture, Education, Health, Trade & Commerce and Oil & Gas, with their enablers.
Under Governor Ikpeazu, infrastructural development has been conceptualized as ‘Caterpillar Revolution’. Even the blind sees what his administration has already achieved. The deaf also hears what Governor Ikpeazu has put in place in the State.
Though the human eye sees more of physical Infrastructure, beyond the aggressive infrastructural engineering work going on in the State are captivating innovative records being created almost on daily basis by the Ikpeazu’s administration in such other areas as agriculture, health, trade and investment.
As a hopeful leader of his people, Governor Ikpeazu has made sure that there is unity of purpose and action among the three arms of government in the State.
The principal objective of government is to guarantee life and property of her citizens. To this extent, the government of Okezie Victor Ikpeazu; Ph.D, has been able to fulfill this constitutional responsibility to the people of Abia State. Security is guaranteed in God’s Own State.
The PDP government of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu in Abia State has completed more than sixty percent of the projects it embarked on in the last three years. Hope makes the good people of Abia State to believe that ongoing projects such as the Interchange(fly-over) at Osisioma, Port-Harcourt road at Aba, the dualization of Aba road in Umuahia, Nkpa road in Bende and Abiriba-Nkporo road in Ohafia, among others, will definitely be completed. Thank God, the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, as amended, provides for two tenures for a Governor that has served his people well.
As a responsive Government, the PDP administration of Governor Ikpeazu has made sure that Abia workers in Ministries, Departments and Agencies have always been paid as and when due.
The Government is, however, not unmindful of the challenges arising from payment of salaries of Teachers and Local Government Council workers. The Government is not resting on it’s oars. Very soon, this problem would be over and hope would be formidably sustained.
As the administration of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu marks it’s third year on 29th May, 2018, the Peoples Democratic Party in Abia State, led by Sir Johnson Onuigbo, warmly, gladly and hopefully felicitates with our own dear Governor and Leader, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu and dutifully urges all and sundry in the State to have hope that through Governor Ikpeazu God would continue to lift the State higher.