–Flags off campaign
The candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance APGA, for the governorship election scheduled to hold in Imo State on November, 11, 2023, Tony Ejiogu flagged off his campaign in Owerri, the Imo State capital on Saturday, September, 1st.
The youthful guber candidate who hails from Umuakuru, Emekuku in Owerri North Local Government Area noted that “for more than 47 years since Imo State was created, our people have flourished and thrived both at home and abroad, bringing glory to our beloved state and to the entire Igbo nation and Nigeria at large.
For these years, our people have bequeathed each and every one of us a legacy of honour and pride and made Imo State a destination for all lovers of natural beauty, which is abundant in our women, incredible intellect as espoused by our well-educated and travelled men and women, as well as our unique abilities which have brought us triumphs in arts and entertainment across the world.
However, I wish I could beat my chest and make these glowing remarks about our dear Imo today. Alas! Things have fallen apart and the centre can no longer hold. Our dear eastern heartland has become a wasteland – turned into a theatre of war and violent extremism, the type never witnessed in the history of our dearstate.
And this is why I stand before you today. To remind us that in spite of our past triumphs and legacies, this is a time of great tension between good and evil, progress and retrogression, and a time to choose whether to continue on the path of destruction or begin the process of rebuilding our dear Imo.
It is my pleasure and honour to present myself to you all today, not as a politician but as your son and brother, and to launch my message of redemption of our dear state, Imo”.
Ejiogu also promised to ensure security of lives and property which he said is cardinal to development, growth and progress.
He said, “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 the 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. In fact, 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, 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.
The root of poverty, which is widespread in our state today, is unemployment. Shall we ever complain too much about the lack of jobs today? Who among you here today does not have a brother, sister, son, daughter or cousin who finished university several years ago but has no job to wake up to every morning? Ourdear State churns out one of the largest number of graduates yearly, but nearly 6 out of 10 are not able to find any meaningful employment. That is a seed of backwardness for the entire Imo that will grow into a tree of despondency, wretchedness, and insecurity for the next generation. We say God forbid it.
Having traversed across continents and breathed the air of development in the Western world, I have witnessed the dynamics of a functioning society. Some of us have also experienced this in other countries, but sadly, not here at home. It is not because we are cursed, or development cannot happen here. It is because we have not made the right choices of leadership; whenever we think we do, it turns out to be a sham. But that needs to stop.
We have witnessed the unfortunate loss of numerous lives due to injustice, corruption, violent attacks, sicknesses, and poverty. Hence, I have come to change the narrative of governance by making it purposeful, effective and people-oriented”.
