Professor Gregory Ibe, Governorship aspirant of Abia State under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has promised to ensure increased youth and women participation if elected.
The aspirant who owns Gregory University Uturu, stated this during an interview with Newsmen after undergoing the screening by APGA political party in Abuja on Friday, adding that the essential needs of Abians will take priority while his administration will move further to developmental projects among others.
Professor Ibe said that when elected, his administration will deliver the dividends of democracy by ensuring that no community or person is left behind, also assuring that women would be carried along as empowerment for women means empowerment for the world.
In his words, “So far as Abia state is concerned it would be wrong for anybody to throw up a 2, 3 or 4 point agenda because there is a total rot in the system. So you have to start with the essentials of man; what people require, then you move into developmental issues. I am a deployment-minded person, I consulted for UNDP and ECOWAS, so I consult for the federal government which means that I know how to Graduate Development.
“My vision is clear about good governance, to ensure that no community, no child is left behind because up till now people are being left behind due to one reason or the other.
“I own Gregory University, Uturu. And that is where the Youths hibernate, is it not? And I have been a lecturer at Abia State University. This means I am a youth equally. If I must quote the politicians, they said ‘the youth of Nigeria begins from 47 to 67, which means I am a youth so I cannot deny my fellow brothers and sisters the opportunity to grow wealth. So every youth must have to learn how to grow and I’m a professor of Entrepreneurship so their pains are my pains and they can be sure that wherever I am, wherever they are, I will meet them with the actual mandate of making sure that we all get liberated and then we move from the level we are to the next point where they can feed and get married as at when due.
“An opportunity given to a woman is an opportunity for the community. When I was building the UNDP skill centres across 774 local governments, we were making sure that gender-sensitive issues were being taken care of. So if you go to all the skill centres I set up in the whole country, you see that in every local government we consider the gender which is critical to all of us. I have written books on weaving. I have written books that have to take care of gender, hairdressing, fashion designing, cosmetology, so I will deploy those books towards empowering them because when you empower one woman you have empowered the world.
He lamented the leadership recruitment in Nigeria, promising that if given the opportunity to govern, the country would be a comparable place with the overseas. “In Nigeria, leadership recruitment has been a problem and as soon as we get it right then things can happen. But the recruitment process keeps on bringing mediocrity into the system. Now that people like us have decided to join the force, we believe that the country will give us the opportunity so that we will make the country what to expect or to be comparable with overseas, ” he said.
The aspirant who donated a vehicle to the party, said his reason for the donation is to assist the party solve its logistics challenges as well as play a role in effective running of the party.
“A goat owned by the public is always hungry and dies that way, so if party members do not contribute to the running of the party, there is a problem, ” Professor Ibe added.
