‘Abia Yet To Be Liberated’

Chief Ikechi Emenike, a PDP Governorship aspirant in Abia, said in Umuahia that Governor Theodore Orji’s defection from PPA to APGA had not liberated the state from bondage.

“It is not enough for Orji to say that Abia has been liberated from bondage because nothing has changed,” Emenike, the ANPP governorship candidate for Abia in 2007, said.

“Ask the people if the governor has been cleansed and if things have changed to know whether truly we have been liberated,” he said, adding that the governor’s claim of liberation had not been tested.

“It must be subjected to test to verify the authenticity of the claim,’’ Emenike said.

Answering questions on the implication of the PDP National Executive wooing Orji to join the party, he said the action was not significant.

“It is the same way I and others were wooed from our parties back to PDP,” the aspirant said, noting that all aspirants would face the primaries.

“I am not aware of any automatic ticket for anybody in the party. If there is any, I don’t know, all I know is that there is no ticket to be given to anybody, it must be subjected to internal democracy,” he said.

Emenike said that automatic ticket was alien to the PDP and Nigerian constitution and stressed that he would not step down for the governor, rather “I will want him to step down for me.”

He said he was confident that INEC would conduct a credible poll in 2011, considering the calibre of those at the leadership of the Commission.

He expressed hope that Prof. Attahiru Jega and his team would not want to soil their hands.

Emenike said that the zoning of political offices was naturally entrenched among the people, adding, “the spirit of equity has always held supreme in the case of Abia.

“Igbo people know how to arrange their things without any rancour,” he said.

Emenike noted that in the case of the state, Abia North had taken its turn and it was the turn of Abia Central to lead.

He said that if elected governor, his major task would be to return the state to the part of godliness to make progress.

“We will know what we are doing,” the aspirant said, adding, “at the pace we are going, we will be swimming in the mud of under development.”

Emenike promised to build blocs to turn the economy of the state around and create job opportunities as well as make the education sector competitive

He said that kidnapping in the state was a symptom of a failed state, adding that “it is a reflection that if you do things better it will abate.”