Professor Ibe, while speaking in a media chat with journalists on the Abia Media Forum platform recently, acknowledged the enormous work expected of the incoming governor of the state but noted that none of the candidates could boast of his pedigree and how he had assisted the state before now.
“In fact, none of my opponents in the 2023 election has my kind of pedigree. First, none of them has the level of investment I have in Abia State,” Ibe declared, arguing that it would be wrong to compare him with any of his opponents in the coming contest, “and they know it.”
The founder and chancellor of Gregory University in the state, one of the best private universities in Nigeria, who is a seasoned developer and an innovator, listed the major areas he had assisted the state to include greatly reducing unemployment in Abia through several avenues like employment in his higher institution.
“Mark you I am the highest employer of labour in the state. As we speak I have more than one thousand academic and non-academic staff, as well as students numbering over 3,000.”
On healthcare, Professor Ibe regretted that the Abia State Government had earlier refused his request for land to build a 1000-bed teaching hospital in the stage, even as he also narrated how he supported the Abia State University Teaching Hospital and other tertiary institutions in the state.
“In 2003 they asked me for money to complete ABSUTH in Aba; I wired N160 million to help complete the project before the institution got the accreditation for medicine. Up until this moment, the government of Abia State is still indebted to me.
“I have upgraded the Amachara Hospital in Umuahia. At the FMC Umuahia, I am building hostels there to accommodate our clinical scholars.
