The governorship candidate of the opposition All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in Abia State, Professor Greg Ibe, has dismissed as “malicious and mischievous”, social media reports that he is being bankrolled by Gov. Okezie Ikpeazu so as not to probe him if voted into power in 2023.
Professor Ibe in a statement by his Media Team, said the said media report was a propaganda tool by his traducers to blackmail him, and urged members of the public to discountenance it.
The statement made available to Vanguard read: “Our attention has been drawn to a humorous and hilarious comic piece authored by an unsuccessful burlesque writer, whose failure to secure a supplementary scriptwriting role in Nollywood has become legendary.
“In this recent laughable piece captioned “How Ikpeazu is funding 3 Abia governorship candidates to retain power by proxy “, this faceless Onitsha market fifth columnist attempted, albeit woefully, to diminish the ascending political profile of Prof Gregory Ibe, the Abia state governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) by erroneously alleging that he is being sponsored by the current Abia state governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu.
“Our investigation however, revealed that in publishing this malicious misinformation, the misguided author ingloriously secured the sponsorship of a notorious serial election loser who apparently wants to take his losing streak to a new level by forcing himself into the forthcoming Abia governorship race, albeit through the back door, deploying an unpopular political structure.”
The APGA governorship candidate said he would not be distracted by the antics of his traducers, adding that his major preoccupation is how to take over the reins of power in the state in 2023.
“Being a focused organization whose current engagement is to dislodge the unproductive and malfunctioning PDP administration, whose abysmal performance continue to be a shameful reproach to all well meaning Abians, while seriously working towards the emergence of a brand new Abia, the Prof Gregory Ibe Campaign Organization(ProGICO) would have ignored the said publication but for the purpose of putting the records straight and as a way of puncturing the writer’s aim of misinforming, misleading and subsequently deceiving innocent Abians.
“Prof Gregory Ibe is a globally acclaimed technocrat whose antecedents and footprints in the highly competitive world of corporate business, scholarly erudism, creative innovativeness and proactive patriotism is public knowledge.
“That his advent into politics in the early days of the fourth republic was not for selfish interests but inspired by a desire to contribute to the cause of reforming and transforming the society.
“That pursuant to this desire Prof Ibe has supported every effort to make life better for Abians in particular and Nigerians as a whole, as these can be attested to by the annual distribution of palliatives to groups, organization of free medical cum surgical outreaches, award of tuition free scholarship to hundreds of undergraduates and grading of community roads.
“That the allusion by the aforementioned publication that Prof Ibe is being sponsored by the PDP government of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu is not only atrocious, pernicious and mischievous but at best the lowest form of a no-brainer evil conjecture hurriedly packaged, promoted and projected by a league of frightened political dwarfs and Lilliputians in an unsuccessful attempt to freely donate a political godfather to Prof Ibe and subsequently accord credit to Dr Ikpeazu for the numerous giant strides of the focused Abia APGA Governorship Candidate in all sectors including social, educational, economical, infrastructural and political.”
