Abia: How I’ll build on Ochendo’s foundation – Ikpeazu

Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, biochemist, teacher-turned politician is one of the frontline governorship aspirants in the race to succeed the outgoing administration of Governor Theodore Orji in Abia State.

Ikpeazu, from Obingwa resigned from his position as Deputy General Manager of the Abia State Environmental Protection Agency, to pursue his governorship ambition. He shares his thoughs below. Excerpts:

WHAT is your assessment of the present administration and how can you lift the state from its present position?

In the first place, by the time Ochendu took over, the socio economic framework of Abia State was in shambles, without discipline from politicians coming from other parts of the country.

It took the transparency of Ochendu, to bring everybody together under the big umbrella of the PDP, and even those that were not within the PDP family are also going to him, that he was the person that came to unify Abia, that is an intangible achievement but very critical to development, because if you don’t have unity, you cannot attract the best brains and you cannot move forward.

The best he did was in terms of security since if somebody is not secure he can’t think of investment and others in infrastructural development agriculture and so on and he touched all those areas.

Talking about Aba, the city is almost being taken over by filth, what’s your agenda for Aba?

Incidentally I don’t think anybody has a better knowledge of the garbage challenge of Aba than I do, I have worked as the Deputy General Manager Environment and Protection Agency, and I know what we met on ground before we came and I also know what we did to make the modest impact that we have made so far. But the gap – the missing link is that as I speak, government is not in charge of waste management at a primary level.

I’ve also studied the constituents of the waste that come from Aba 65 per cent of them is bio-degradable, vegetables and left over food which means that we can think about organic fertilizers because it is biodegradable and we can convert it for manure.

The other 35 per cent is from metals, plastics and so on. Some sorting will be done. As I speak, we have started to create and inaugurate sanitation clubs in various secondary schools. The idea is to teach our young ones the tenets of sorting from the beginning so that they can go back to the home and teach their parents in turn what it means to sort waste because you cannot do a waste recycling plant if you have not sorted out your waste from the primary source. Associates of Governor T.A Orji like you say he has done much. Is his shoe not too big for you?

I’ve about nineteen years of experience in politics and one other thing that counts in my favor is that I’m a home baked politician.

In the sense that I understand the sentiments of the average Abian and I also represent the middle class. Not only that, have I spent all these nineteen years in the trenches with my people, fighting and battling with this present governor for the elevation of Abia State. I also know some of the things which he has done, to make sure that the Ochendo magic is a reality.

I’ve been at home with all the political gladiators of Abia State and I have served and served diligently.

Greatest challenge

Secondly I represent the middle class, I don’t make noise that I come from anywhere and the people know that the best person to trust is one of their own, because the greatest challenge to our economy not only in Abia State is that the economy has shut down the middle class, so we now have two classes of people, its either you are rich or poor, so the so called middle class is what I represent and they know that their pain is my pain and their joy my joy, my mission is to restore the middle class in Abia State and give them a pride of place.

What is your panacea for crime and corruption in the state?

The greatest attitude towards corruption is to build institutions, because those are the things that would outlive you and to also lead by example. I’m not a trader, my background is teaching and if I’m not doing politics I’m teaching, so if you lead by example the only way you know that you are going to do well or not, is how serious you are in terms of building institutions, because if you appoint somebody not necessarily on political sentiment because that person is capable, competent and can deliver, it doesn’t matter where he comes from, it means also that you are surrounding yourself with people with little or no inclination towards enriching themselves at the expense of the public good.

I intend to run a very transparent government, I intend to bring all shades of Abia people into governance, the traditional rulers the youths (which is my primary constituency) and the women and in-fact anybody that has anything to offer that would help build Abia.

From the interview one can easily see that this man is as poor as TA (before he became governor) and has no agenda for the state.Abians let's not repeat the Ochendo mistake.

U want to build on which foundation. So U r too blind to see that there's no foundation. If U com to Aba with this nonsense of a manifesto, residents will break Ur head.

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