By Our correspondent
There was wild jubilation in Imo State on Thursday as the the Governor of Anambra State, Prof Chukwuma Soludo, vowed to sack the incumbent governor of the state, Senator Hope Uzodimma.
Soludo said he would replace him( Uzodimma) with the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Tony Ejiogu, in the November 11 governorship election in the state.
The Senator representing Abia South senatorial district, Enyinnaya Abaribe, also added his in the bid to sack Uzodimma in the poll.
They stated this in Owerri while kicking off the Imo governorship campaign of the APGA candidate in the election, Tony Ejiogu, on Thursday.
According to them, it was time to end insecurity and bad governance in Imo State. They also said Imo remained an APGA State and it was time to return it to APGA.
Soludo represented by his deputy, Onyekachukwu Ibezim, was of the view that; “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.
“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.
Enyinnaya Abaribe, said; “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 the APGA, governorship candidate of APGA, to bring good governance in Imo state.”
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Sylvester Okenwa, said: “Imo state is the home of APGAin 2023. APGA won Imo, 2007, Martine Agbaso won. In 2011 APGA won with Rochas Okorocha. He went away with our mandate to an unknown destination.
“Now, a man, Tony Ejiogu,has come 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.”
The Imo state governorship candidate of APGA, Tony Ejiogu, said among other things, that; “My first charge in the rebuilding agenda is to make our communities liveable again.
“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 Sciences to Arts, our people break boundaries and make us proud across the world.
“Imo State has the highest literacy rate at 97% in Nigeria, according to the NBS. The secret to this is that we feed our children well. 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 lands. Sadly, even Ohaji Egbema, Ngor Okpala, Mbaise, Oguta and Ikeduru.”
“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.”
