The chancellor and founder of Gregory University, Uturu, Prof Gregory Ibe has said that an Igbo man would make a better president if elected in 2023.
Speaking exclusively to News Echo at his home town, Uturu, he noted that there should be no apprehension in the Igbo man becoming the president of Nigeria as according to him, other ethnic groups will benefit more from the emergence of a president of South East extraction.
He noted that “the Igbo man would not create war. He will reintegrate and bring every other ethnic group into the fabrics of Nigeria”. He said that Igbo must not shy away from promoting their rights of leadership in Nigeria, adding that there is no better time for the Igbo man to be president than now.
He hinted that if Igbo man becomes the president, ninety percent of other ethnic groups will be better for it, stressing that the more ‘you avoid the Igbo man being the president, the more you create chances of disintegration’. He insisted that it is only the Igbo man that respects and will keep the sanctity and unity of Nigeria.
Ibe hinted that the Igbo man when elected as president of Nigeria will offer resounding leadership that the world will be proud of, adding that it is a goal that must be achieved. He said that he has spoken with leaders from other zones and they have subscribed to the fact that Igbo man should be president of Nigeria in 2023.
He advised that personal interests within the zone must be compressed to achieve the goal of the Igbo man becoming the number one citizen of Nigeria. He urged all other zones to work for the actualization of the Igbo man becoming the president of Nigeria for a united, indivisible country.
The founder equally commended the fruitful efforts of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu in developing as well as growing Small and Medium Scale Enterprise (SME) in Abia State. According to him, “The governor dresses almost all the time in Made in Aba clothes and shoes, so, he is also an ambassador of Made in Aba, whether he is in government or outside the government. The history of Abia State in terms of Made in Aba will not be written without his name. We have checked it, we believe that these successes will have a manifold gain to our state that is more of entrepreneurial in nature”.
He lauded Governor Ikpeazu’s vision in attracting investors to the state which ultimately led to the ranking of Abia by National Bureau of Statistics as the third best in foreign direct investment state in 2020. Ibe said, “The performance of our governor, bearing in mind the available of money in his kitty to handle the state is commendable”.
Continuing he noted that Ibe, “We are ready to keep supporting the Governor to make sure that our party becomes number one and maintain the number one lead”.
Ibe, who also is a Consultant of ECOWAS Commission for 15 countries, emphasized the need for Abians to come back home and invest, revealing that he invested in his hometown and State to contribute to the development of Abia State. “If God has made you an Abian, the best thing to do is to do something for Abia so that God will keep blessing you. I have chosen to do my things for Abia and I know that what I am doing, God is also blessing me”, he enthused.
He disclosed that his university Gregory University has employed more that 1000 staff, majority of whom are from Abia State. While appreciating Governor Ikpeazu for his efforts in bringing Enyimba Economic City and his infrastructural developmental strides in Aba, Ibe called on the citizenry to stop messing up the drainage systems in all the roads built. He added that citizens should be warned through advocacy to maintain and protect what the governor had initiated in the state.
He reiterated his earlier call that only skill based education could solve Nigeria’s unemployment problem. He said, “My target is human capital development, to develop my home town and my state. So anybody anywhere who does not feel that he should develop his home town, village and state, will never have money.
If you don’t speak about your community or your state, don’t expect anybody from anywhere to talk about it. I developed Abuja. I used to go from one bush to the other and Abuja today is a heaven in terms of development and is a town, why will I be alive and allow my community to remain the same old natural habitat when I know I can do something. So I came here and built this university single-handedly without any debt to the bank, no collaboration with anybody except my God almighty. So I owe nobody. Whatever you see today is and whatever you see along the Enugu – Port Harcourt Expressway, my Teaching Hospital and whatever I have done in Umuahia, all of them are God given money”.
He added, “What we are trying to do is to combine theory with practical, train my scholars so that when they go to the industry nobody will ask them, ‘Do you know how to use this machine? We’re proud of what we have now.
We have the best laboratory in Nigeria. Well equipped. Nobody beats us. We run 10 colleges, 62 courses and we’re not even afraid of anybody in Nigeria because we’re solid and ready. We have the best radiology department in Nigeria, we have the best geology department in Nigeria, if anybody tells you he has the best, then the person is joking. I’m doing projects and I’m trying to do best practices.
The only thing that is in my brain is best practices. If it’s not right, it’s not right at all.
“So I create the environment for people to succeed and I want to demystify the eventual scenarios that it is difficult for you to do a business or do this and that. Here, we teach you that it’s possible to do whatever thing you ever taught of.
Again, note if you dream and your dream doesn’t scare you, you’ve not started. So, when you wake up from the dream, you should be like wow! What’s this? Once you dream and get scared of how to achieve that dream, pursue it, you’ll arrive somewhere. Don’t be scared of making a move to pursue your dreams. For me, I’ve visualized how Nigeria can be the best and I’ve been pursuing it since I started.”
