The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Abia State, High Chief Ikechi Emenike has called on Abia youths to be the vanguards in the struggle to enthrone good governance in the state.
He made the call in a message he sent to the young people of Abia on the occasion of the International Youth Day 2022, which was marked on Friday August 12 with the theme, “Intergenerational solidarity: creating a world for all ages”.
Chief Emenike noted that youths of Abia have always been the first victims of the maladministration that has plagued the state under successive governments of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
He stated that there has never been any clearcut policy to harness the potentials of Abia youths to make them and release their creative energy and positively contribute to the development of their own state and Nigeria in general.
Tne Abia APC leader promised that if APC takes control of Abia next year, good governance would root in the state and the youth of Abia would the first to feel its positive impact just as the negative impact of bad governance had affected them before others.
“You should devote your energy and time to work for good governance to germinate and take root in Abia come 2023,” he told the young people of Abia, adding, “It is in your best interest for Abia to be programmed to start working well”.
The APC governorship flag bearer, who is a development economist assured Abia youths that he has “a big plan” for them in the development agenda he has put in place to make Abia a first world state in a third world nation.
He identified unemployment as the major problem confronting the young population of Abia, saying that he would create real jobs for youths and birth “a new Abia economy” that would sustain employment opportunities for the teeming youths.
Emenike reminded youths of Abia of the sufferings they have endured over the years because bad leaders were put in government house with the attendant frittering away of the resources that would have been invested in the development of the state.
He said that 2023 would provide the opportunity to correct the past mistakes that Abians had made in the choice of leaders and youths should key into the rescue mission he is leading to retrieve Abia from the hands of bad leaders.
“No more would the resources of Abia be devoured by locusts that masquerade as political leaders. No more would few individuals, who cannot see beyond their noses, be allowed to mortgage the future of Abia youths,” he asserted.
Emenike, therefore, challenged Abia youths to support his vision for a new Abia where their interests would be well accommodated, adding that they can make it possible by giving him their votes in 2023.
Recalling the exploits of an Abia youth, Chioma Onyekwere, who won a gold medal in discus for Nigeria in the just concluded Commonwealth Games, the APC governorship hopeful assured that he would provide the catalyst that would spur Abia youths to soar beyond the sky.