The Abia State deputy governorship candidate of the Young Progressives Party, YPP, in the 2023 election, Dr Desmond Chima Anyaso, the member representing Bende North State constituency, Mr Nnamdi Ibekwe, PDP, and Dr Okey Ezeala of APC, were among prominent politicians that led their supporters to join Governor Alex Otti and his Labour Party in Uzuakoli, Bende LGA.
In the multiple event which saw the commissioning of the Ngwu Uzuakoli Health Center, also witnessed the inauguration of the leadership of the Bende LGA chapter of the Abia Arise Movement.
In his remarks, Dr Anyaso said he took the decision to join Governor Otti because of the purposeful and people oriented leadership, which he said had rekindled hope of the ordinary citizens in governance.
He declared his unalloyed support and allegiance to the Governor’s rebuilding and transformation programme and the Abia Arise Movement, which he supported with two branded coaster buses, as he announced his formal resignation from the YPP.
Receiving the defectors at the Practicing School, Uzuakoli, in Bende LGA, Governor Otti restated the importance of grassroots involvement in his development agenda, revealing that Abia North, as a whole, had been identified as strategic to the realization of his administration’s Agro-Transformation Agenda, which targets sustainable food security, job creation, and enhanced foreign revenue for the state.
The Governor emphasized that the Abia Arise Movement was more than a political platform, but a non-partisan vehicle for grassroots mobilisation and leadership development and called on all citizens of Abia State to embrace the movement’s ideals and actively participate in its activities at the community level.
According to him, “Our administration has shown that governance is about service, responding to public concerns and deploying public funds to uplift the people. Abians are happy not because of handouts, but because they believe government now consistently makes the right decisions.”
He pointed at the recently completed 67.6km Umuahia–Uzuakoli–Abiriba–Ohafia Road, now named Joe Irukwu Way, as a transformative infrastructure expected to spur economic growth saying that experts have projected a significant increase in the region’s GDP over the next 12 months due to enhanced access to markets, revival of agro-assets, and general ease of movement.
The Governor who had earlier commissioned the newly reconstructed and fully equipped Ngwu Uzuakoli Primary Health Centre disclosed that in the past ten days alone, he had commissioned 23 new projects across several LGAs comprising 18 road projects and five primary healthcare centres.
He warned against vandalism of public property, especially by scrap metal dealers and directed security agencies to clamp down on offenders even as he warned that community leaders would be held accountable for negligence if vandalism occurs in their domains.
The State Coordinator of Abia Arise, Mazi Nkem Okoro, and the Bende LGA Coordinator, Mr Onyedikachi Iroegbu, in their separate speeches, said the movement was born out of the desire of Abians for purposeful leadership and would continue to align with the Governor’s vision and mission.
.
