Okezie Victor Ikpeazu: Abia people ready to resist impunity

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has said that the people of Abia State have sworn to protect the mandate given to him in the 2015 election, saying that any impunity on the election would be resisted.

Speaking with some journalists in Abuja, the governor, who is in Appeal Court to challenge a Federal High Court removing him, said that anyone claiming to be more popular and in regular standing with the people should square up with him for an election.

He described the move to remove him as clandestine, saying it was an attack on democracy.

He said: “So, what you are seeing is gymnastics of people trying to import impunity of old days into the present day circumstance and I have said it time and time again, that my people are happy with the present government at the federal level for not yielding to this kind of impunity, such that you can get money from oil subsidy and deploy it for the removal of a sitting governor.

“I remember Ngige. I remember Abiola. These were serious attacks and enfontry on our democracy and our journey to develop ourselves in an egalitarian way, in a modern way as it is practiced all over the world. “But I have said it, time and time again, that Abia people are willing and prepared to resist this kind of impunity. Anybody who thinks that he is in good and regular standing with the people should go and run for an election. I mean it is morally right. If you think you are man enough, obtain the form and run election. You can’t come and steal a mandate of somebody who campaigned four times in every local government, who ran election on the 11th and another one on the 25th, who had gone through the tribunal upto the Supreme Court and affirmed as governor.

“Then you just go because you have a judgement, you want to storm Government House and take over, that is not how it is done. That High Court cannot decide for the over 400,000 voters in Abia State. It is unfortunate but we can only have one governor who swore to an oath of allegiance and to the constitution of the federal republic to serve his people and that is me.”

Ikpeazu however established a firm confidence in the judiciary to serve justice as it should be.