From Okwe Obi, Abuja

Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, has said the agitation by the G-5 governors, also known as integrity group, would outlive the 2023 general elections.

He said it was unfair for one region to occupy sensitive positions in the PDP when other regions are left out of the scheme of things.  The governor said he supprted the stance of the G-5 because lack of cohesion and inclusivity were the major problems bedeviling the country.

He spoke in Abuja, yesterday, after the public presentation of his book titled: ‘The Biochemistry of Environmental Pollution” co-authored with Dr Kalu Kalu Igwe, of the Department of Veterinary and Biochemistry, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike.

He  said his love for Biochemistry and to add to the existing literature prodded him into writing the book, 

“The essence of our being here is to solve problems. My study and sojourn in the area of biochemistry will be in vein if I cannot contribute to the body of its knowledge. It is this drive that propelled me to keep at it till I achieved it,” he said.

Ikpeazu, who is  PDP senatorial candidate for Abia South, said even if all critical officers of PDP had came from his region,  he would still have kicked against it.

“Let me say this to us, how I see G-5 is that what we trying to bring to the fore is beyond 2023 elections. It is about inclusiveness; it is about what we think is at the root and jugular of what we think is with Nigeria. If I come to a point in my life as a politician and you produce two or three critical officers of my party and they are coming from one particular geo-political zone, I will still agitate, even if, it comes from my geo-political zone alone.

“I am talking about, how we can get everybody on the table. If you exclude the Igbo, northern Nigeria I will ask the question, I will also protest. If you exclude people from western Nigeria, I will still protest.”

The Abia governor said Nigerians across religious, ethnic, age and gender divides must be accommodate in its politics.

“The greatest problem of Nigeria today is not security, neither is it economic. It is lack of cohesion, it is disunity. It is because there is mutual suspicion, lack of mutual respect. We must come together; women, youths, people from the south, people from the north, stating that this country belongs to all of us under one God.”

Chairman of the occasion, Prof. James Ayatse, expressed happiness in the quality of the book.