I HAVE the privilege and humility to come to you today, to formally declare my intention to run for a second term in office as the governor of Abia State, under the banner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the coming 2011 general election.

Our story and the story of Abia State in the past three and a half years of my first tenure in office, is  well known to all of you. It is the story of an innocent man who joined the wrong gang. It is the story of a potential promising State that was truncated into a privatised estate. It is the story of a privatised State that held its good rulers and its people in bondage and gagged them with impunity.

It is a story that confirmed the truism that “Evil only triumphs, when good people keep quiet”. After all, it was the encouraging sounds of your voices-The Good People Of Abia State that finally broke the evil story and the evil jinx. You said “Never again!”, and I heard you loud and clear!

We all know that evil rules with fear. For the period that those who privatised Abia State as their personal fiefdom, kept our people in bondage, they instigated terror, violence and insecurity, to keep Abians down and made life intolerable. It was that fear that created easy access to the pulse and purse of the State. Our government was left to fight both bondage and insecurity in a vicious, endless circle. The result of that wasteful engagement is well known to all of us.

Now, with the grace of the Almighty God, your wake-up support, and with the belief that all evils are temporary and will eventually succumb to the good will of the people, we have broken from the bondage and we are now free. All the good people of Abia are now free, and a new song is in the air. Abians are saying “Never Again”, and everything is suddenly turning around. The New Phase Abia is truly here. We are ready to do good things and great things.

My good people of Abia, you know I have seen it all. From the bottomless pit of a once privatised state, and now back to the peak of a free people, determined to recapture their fate and take their pride of place as a great State. Now, I too, am stronger and more dedicated to serve Abians, even better. I now ask you to use me as the new face of Abia, and in this new phase of Abia State’s renaissance. As I formally announce to you my intention to seek a second term in office, I ask for your blessing. I ask for your support. I ask for your votes to come back to office to fulfil my zeal to serve you.

In my second term in power, I pledge to lay a solid foundation for a sustainable political, social and economic development of Abia State. Indeed, we have started that process by holding an Abia Economic Summit to articulate the sound basis for growth and wealth creation for all Abians, and by reaching to all the great minds of Abia origin, and winning their support to be a part of the new dispensation in Abia State’s development.

In my second term in office, we pledge to see government and governance as a relay race, where success does not end with one runner, but where each runner’s good race, lays the solid block building foundation for the final success of the team. We will focus on moving away from ad-hoc nature of the past and begin to lay a sound foundation for the future of Abia State, where every successive government of the state merely adds its value quota.

Our action plan and programme will return Abia State to the politics of purpose and focus on people and environment. We will balance the realism of our people and their aspirations, with pragmatism in providing key development dividends that will touch the lives of the ordinary people. Our key programmes for the next four years are already articulated in our 2011 budget presented to the Abia State House of Assembly, for consideration. I ask you to give me that rare opportunity of implementing that budget of Liberation and Restoration to Abia people. ‘ The Days of the Locust are certainly over’.

My good people of Abia State, I pray to you to see it in your hearts to support my second term to office and you will experience the real Ochendo in action. We will first sustain the peace and security that has now come back to Abia, so that every Abian can dream and actualise their dream in peace and freedom. Businesses, both local, interstate and foreign, can grow and thrive without fear and hindrance.

We will focus on employment creation, and empower our people to get back to work and support themselves. With the liberalisation of textile import, we will support our traders to do the things they know best, and open up new opportunities for our unemployed youths.

My next government will give priority to Agriculture-as a linkage to job creation. We will provide avenues to assist real farmers financially and materially to enable them create jobs and food sufficiency. We will return to the days of farm settlement policy, and create avenue for large scale mechanised farmers to thrive.

We will focus on renewing our urban cities by expansion and creation of industrial parks, especially in the city of Aba. This will revive industrialisation and create opportunities to tap the ingenuity of our artisans, and small scale industrialists in Aba and other areas.

We will continue to focus on education as a vital aspect of our development, and as a key to social engineering of our people in a fast developing technological world. We will create specialised and modelled training for our Abia Polytechnic students to adequately prepare them to support the emerging small scale industries in Aba and other urban areas.

We have already started the policy of planning and building of all-weather dependable roads in both urban and rural areas, and this will be sustained in my second term in office. Our urban renewal drive in Aba and Umuahia will experience massive road-work extensions, and desilting of drainages to check flooding of our cities. The rural areas are not left out.

We will focus on creating and tapping of the potentials of Abia State as a tourist State. We will encourage a public-private participation in the building of a 5-star hotel in Aba and Umuahia to carter for expected new investors in State. As a long term plan, we will seek partnership with foreign concerns and the NDDC to dredge the Azumini-Akwete River to the status of a seaport, to encourage commerce and tourism.

All these programmes and more we will execute in my second term.

My good people of Abia State, together we have put  to shame the nameless and unjustified action of those whose main purpose was to privatise the commonwealth of all Abians, and spread terror to disunite us. It is time to convert this retreat into advance.

By Theodore ORJI
Being excerpts of a speech delivered by Governor Theordore Orji  of Abia State during his declararion for a second term in office.