Okezie Ikpeazu, Governor of Abia State, says he is already preparing his mind to a massive onslaught from the incoming government of Alex Otti, which he claimed could launch an attack to destroy the good deeds he left in Abia State in his eight years in office.

Ikpeazu, who spoke in an interview, listing some of them as leaving Abia as the safest state in Nigeria, said however no matter the line the government toed, he would remain quite proud of all those achievements, including the fact of also leaving the state as the third best in foreign direct investment.

“Let me say this and I’m going to be very predictive. There’s going to be a very massive attack to demolish my legacies and monuments in Abia. It’s going to be a lot of falsehood. There’s going to be a lot of petty vendetta and all those sorts of things, but I’ll be proud to say that, I’m handing over the safest and most stable state in the South East despite the fact that this election didn’t go my way, I’m proud to say that no life was lost and I’m proud to say that the government of the day was rather a victim.

“In some places, people from other political parties were unleashing mayhem on our supporters and dealing with them the way they love, but in all of these, like Jonathan would say, this election, victory or loss, is not worth the life of any Abian.

“Going forward, people will know that it’s when you have a secured state that you can become the third best in foreign direct investment. It’s also when you’ve created a better life for your people that you can become number three best when it comes to the poverty index in this country. These are world Bank parameters. In this place as I speak, the governors’ forum is doing a very serious review of our tele-health initiative. Abia State is the only state in Nigeria that has connected over 400 primary health care centres to a team of doctors in our call room online in real-time.

“The level of service we render in our primary health care centres today is comparable to the level of service some people render in general hospitals if not specialist hospitals. Today, in Abia State we’ve started the gradual establishment of laboratories in primary health care centres where a diagnosis can be done. Abia State runs a geriatric outreach for old people. We’ve built a specialist pediatric hospital and by the special Grace of God, we’ll deliver one of the biggest hospitals in the South-East before the 29th of May with a CT Scan that can do 265 slides.

“I think the best I’ve seen around us recently is 32 or 64 slides. There’s no other machine that’s better or that can do better in this environment. 71 per cent reduction in infant and maternal mortality is not easy. I was asked by some journalists about some months ago to tell them how I’ve been battered and kidnapped by some internet warriors and terrorists? When I tell them that the World Bank has published that we’ve reduced infant and maternal mortality by 71 per cent they wanted to know how did you do it? And I told them that the strategy is to bring everybody to loop in our primary health care centre and do whatever you can to stop people from running to quarks for delivery.

“So, how do you do that? We keyed into the Basic Health Care Provision Fund. We offered free delivery which is costing more than N120,000 in some private clinics. We give you free delivery pack needed to take care of the child. In addition to that, we also give you a token of N500 to go home with. The one that made news was that Ikpeazu is giving women that got delivered N500.

“When people ask me, how have you felt with the economy and how’s business in your state? I say to them, well before the statistics of being number three in foreign direct investment came, I told them, in 2015 when I became the Governor that fast food joints were closing because people were not investing in Aba.

“But today when you come, investment is growing , industries abound here, the Enyimba Economic City is almost taking off and people are building lubricant plants everywhere. But in addition, you have new Cinema, Chicken Republic (Fast Food that was nowhere in Abia before) and all these things for leisure and nightlife. The one that they picked is that I said that the achievement of my government is Chicken Republic. But I was very happy when the World Bank published that we were number three in foreign direct investment. If you look at the turnover of Kentucky Fried Chickens (KFC) there’s no company that does better except the oil companies and Dangote. They employ over 6500 people in a city. People don’t understand. I have added 700 brand new classrooms to our credit and four new model schools.

“We’ve migrated into digital learning. We have continuing teachers training institute that continually trains our teachers and interfaces them with the best from the rest of the world like Australia, India and Bangladesh. That’s why today, out of eight years we maintained first in four years in the West African Examination Council (WAEC) conducted West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). And we’ve not gone below fourth. We moved Abia State University from number 97th to number 26th in Nigeria and the number too best state university in Nigeria. These things are not easy feats.

“We reversed enrollment back into public schools from 150,000 pupils to about 650,000 and above pupils on the account of our free meal programme started before that of the federal government and we employed about 5300 women to handle it, collaborating with Federal Government, as food vendors. I don’t want to talk about four Bridges and the first flyover in Abia. I don’t want to talk about connecting the major markets in Aba with good roads for the first time in 30 years.

“There are so many things I can beat my chest and say I’ve achieved. We have two industries for shoes and the other one for garments. By the special grace of God, I’ll be the Governor that’ll hand over a brand new government house. I don’t also want to talk about the completion of the International Conference Centre, the ASUBEB building and the JAAC Building started by my predecessor. Or the Abia Investment House, New ABSIEC and ASOPADEC headquarters. We’ve done a lot and there’s one that is very dear to my heart.

“People did everything to stop the intervention of the African Development Bank in supporting us to do 500 kilometres of rural roads. They wrote petitions against the project. But despite all these, I was able to get the project on course and I’ll do the ground breaking before I leave. Somebody else may take the credit, but put it on record that this government paid the counterpart funding, defended that project before the Senate, the ministry of finance, attracted it and we’re doing the groundbreaking.

“Before the end of this year, that project would have touched the lives of our people. So, as I leave on the 29th of May, I’ll leave a very proud man. There may be things I didn’t do well. I still have 3000 workers which I wasn’t able to attend to their needs as I would have loved to. I still owe pensioners and of course, I inherited most of it. Some doctors as well.

“I still have about three or four months of their money in their own account but I’m asking them that if they don’t resume from strike, I’ll not pay because, if they claim they are being owed 29 months, in all honesty, they’ve not worked for 15 months within this period. My Bible says that a worker deserves his pay but they’ve not worked. Each time I bargain with them, I remember one particular occasion they caused me to go and borrow N400 million on a Thursday and I paid them that Thursday, the next Tuesday, they embarked on a strike. So, I urge them to search their conscience and I pray that they get a better deal in the years ahead. In my first three months as governor, I paid them 11 months’ salary arrears. Those who were earning N500,000 went home with N5.5 million.

“So, I wanted to prove to them that I was a humane forthcoming leader but my relationship with them did not go, regrettably, as I would have loved it to. But I take solace in the fact that 29,000 of the rest of my workers and all the ministries were paid. As I said, there are a few things which I can say I didn’t do well, but I’m in a place where I can say I’ve given my best.”