The Association of non indigenes of Abia state have announced their adoption of the APGA guber flag bearer Prof Gregory Ibe as consensus candidate for the forthcoming 18 March Gubernatorial election.
Announcing the resolution during an interactive session Chairman of the association Rev Ngozi Okorie, stated that they took the decision as a befitting response to the numerous social intervention undertakings of Prof Ibe which according to them have impacted heavily on their members.
According to Rev Okorie, the resolution is the outcome of their assessment of the performance records of the major guber candidates, stressing that the result substantially favoured Prof Ibe.
In his words, ” Being major stakeholders in the politics of Abia state where we have lived and done business for many years, we undertook detailed profiling of the major guber candidates before arriving at the choice of Prof Ibe.
Our resolution was further strenghtened by the fact that most of our members testified of benefitting from many of his social intervention programmes, including COVID-19 palliative distribution, scholarship award and free medical outreach, even before commencement of political.campaigns”.
Continuing he said,” We are therefore encouraged by the biblical injunction that says you shall reap what you sow in announcing our total support for the aspiration of Prof Ibe seeing that he has invested so much in the lives of Abia Non-Indigenes”.
Present in the meeting were representatives of different blocks of the association including Yoruba, Hausa and Efik.
Responding, Prof Ibe promised to run an inclusive government that will accommodate every group and pledged to assist the group build a permanent secretariate in the state.