by Tony Icheku 


All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Governorship candidate for Abia state, Professor Gregory Ibe says  he is ready to sign a pact with the media to hold him accountable concerning his performance and manifesto from the day he assumes office as the governor.


Prof Ibe while speaking during a zoom interactive session with Abia Media Forum, comprising  media professionals from the State scattered lall over the country argued that he is the only candidate among all the contestants that has the greatest investment in the State.


"I became a billionaire at the age of 21 and I have done well for myself and am only coming to make Abia a model state for the benefit of Abians, their children and those yet unborn and not to take from the till as most politicians are wont", he said


Prof  Ibe, Founder and Chancellor of Gregory University, Uturu further disclosed  that Abia State Government is still owing him the sum of N160m, being money he lent the State government since 2003 to complete the Abia State  University Teaching Hospital (ABSUTH) Aba to facilitate it's accreditation then.


Ibe also noted that his intervention is currently transforming the teaching of Science, Technology and Mathematics in Nigeria at all levels of education and added that he   plans to transform education in the State, as  detailed in his manifesto.



Ibe also said he would make Aba a World Trade Centre if elected governor and intends . Explaining how he intends to bring  use his contacts all over the world to turn around the State into a model State in few years.


He said he left PDP after his patience ran out with the inept leadership of the government and the fact he was shortchanged after all he did to prop the party.


According to him ss a member of PDP,  his ideas though innovative were never accepted. For instance he said, “ I met the governor to give me the UBE building at Ubakala that have been abandoned, so I could introduce transformative Education as approved for his University by the United Nations. “They promised to give me but they never did.”


Already Gregory University has launched the United Nations Education Transmission Centre and the West African Green Energy Development Institute for Human Capital Development, being the first of its kind in Africa.


When they refused, he said he went ahead in partnership with the University to found ‘Skill G’ Nigeria Limited which set up Innovation Hub in Abuja to boost technological advancement in Africa with support from the Israeli Embassy on scientific and technological products emanating from the centre.


What we do is “advertise across Nigeria, if you are either in the University where our equipment are or not, you submit your ideas, I will look at the idea with the Israeli government. Israeli government gives me partial funds. From there I will select the best ideas, invite the owners, keep them in hotel for six to nine months, and feed them. I will bring investors from all over the world to Abuja and we will turn the ideas to invention and we will expose them to people that buy inventions. You will see Innovation Hub on Airport Road in Abuja.”


He said while in PDP, He expressed his interest to become governor in 2013, 2014, but the  governor asked him to wait because he was still a young man, and since he just opened a University,  he should wait and nurture it. He waited and supported PDP wholeheartedly.


“During the Covid, I donated 850 bags of rice, three ambulances, testing equipment for Covid because I was the supplier of these machines for NCDC


" By the time Covid ended, or about ending, hunger was still biting. And they have not shared the budgeted food; I embarked on sharing food in every local government in Abia State with the University buses. I fumigated every market in Abia, with my University workers. I was doing these things and many more to endear the PDP to the people, despite their lapses.


“When 2022 came,  I came out again to run but the party denied me the opportunity, so I moved to APGA. Since I joined APGA I have embarked on what I started in 1991, medical outreach in all the 17 local government areas in Abia


“I commenced on the surgeries, I have treated our brothers and sisters, I have given out 16,000 eye glasses, my buses run free transport in the State, I have over 400 Abians on scholarship from the 17 local government areas in the University.


“I am coming to make a change. I am not joining forces with any godfather to deny my grandchildren opportunity of developing Abia,” Ibe said, adding that on free transportation alone he has spent over N1billion from his purse.


Ibe who said he has worked with all the presidents in Nigeria from Obasanjo in different capacities, and also a consultant to 15 countries of the World said he weeps at the level of wastage of human capital in Abia which he is coming to correct, insisting that while others come to develop only their local governments, as governor he will seat with each local government, find out their strengths and weaknesses and develop them in that wise.


He grieves that ABSUTH has lost accreditation but noted that he is building a 1000 bed teaching hospital for Gregory University in Ezinnachi, maintaining that what ABSUTH lost, Abians have also regained through Gregory University.


Ibe noted that he has so much to do to rescue Abia and urged  the people to “follow who know road.”