Abia State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, has described the plot to unseat him as an attempted coup d’etat in a democracy and vowed to fight to protect his mandate.
The governor was speaking when he received members of the Abia State Executive Council who paid him a solidarity visit, in Government House, Umuahia, over the federal High Court judgement against him.
The governor wondered how someone, who never contested election, will seek to become governor through the back door.
“The plot to remove me as governor was a coup d’etat. I can’t imagine that somebody who never contested election, is seeking to be made a governor through the back door. I can’t understand the rush by INEC to issue Uche Ogah with a fertificate of Return. I also can’t comprehend the rush to swear him in.
“Are you telling me that I don’t have a right to appeal a judgement against me? Or are you telling me that if it was a death sentence, I should be killed before appealing? The truth is that it goes beyond the issue of tax. I want to appeal to our Igbo brothers to see politics as a game of a winner and a loser. They must should not bring the mercantile business style into politics. It won’t help us.”
Ikpeazu assured his commissioners that he was not bothered by the judgment as he has absolute confidence in the judiciary to do justice on the matter.
The governor pointed out that his story as a public servant in the state is well known to Abians and that as a public servant, his tax was deducted by the appropriate authorities.
Ikpeazu used the forum to call on business men in politics to jettison the mercantile attitude of business and not see politics a do -or- die game.
Earlier in his speech on behalf of the Executive Council members, the Commissioner for Finance, Obinna Oriaku, explained that their visit was to show solidarity to the governor over the current political situation in the state, assuring him that they were together with him in this trial period.
According to him, their various ministries will interpret and carry out the governor’s dreams and promised that the distractions will not deter them from achieving their goal.
