By Eric Ugbor

UMUAHIA — The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has vowed to take over Abia State in 2015.

The party said it would replicate in Abia its good governance achievements in Anambra State.

National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh, who said this while commissioning the party’s state secretariat, also dismissed Abia as a PDP state, insisting that APGA would retrieve it from PDP.

Umeh challenged Abia people to search for quality candidates for the task ahead.
According to Chief Umeh, “APGA is the custodian of the electoral goodwill of Ndigbo.”

He said its government was always out to fight and protect the interest of Ndigbo.
He said: “The mood of the nation now is very clear to the discerning and that is why we look inwards. This is going to be part of the our campaign issues.

“APGA is the party of Ndigbo see as their own; the party that will defend their interest in Nigeria.

“The party that is very compassionate in dealing with issues that concern our people, and I am sure that Abia people are ready to go.

“What I promise the people of Abia State is a government that will be compared with what we have in Anambra State. APGA has raised the bar of governance in Anambra to the admiration of the people.

“So our vision is to replicate this quality governance in Abia and other states we are going to win.

“Our policies are very novel; the amount of planning in APGA government is not ad-hoc thing. We approach governance holistically. We work in all sectors simultaneously.
“We will do that in Abia, we make progress in all areas at the same time so that the people will be happy.”

According to him, Abia produced great and visionary leaders like late Michael Okpara, Premier of defunct Eastern region.

He expressed the hope that people with late Okpara’s leadership quality were still in the state to carry APGA flags.

Umeh dismissed the view that Abia was a PDP state, saying there was nothing like PDP state in Igboland, insisting that PDP took the zone in 2003 through electoral fraud.
“There is nothing like PDP state in Igboland. I have said before, in 2003, APGA won all the elections in South East, but PDP through election manipulation took hold the South East.

“We are doing everything to dislodge them and we have hope that with new INEC which has improved in its conduct of elections, we are going to take advantage of new improved INEC to get the votes of Abia people and secure it. Rigging is no long easy to achieve,” he said.