APGA governorship aspirant pledges to deliver inaugural speech in Igbo

A governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, Sir Damian Okolo, has said if voted in as the governor of the state in the November 6 poll, he would save the Igbo language from going into extinction as predicted in some quarters.

He said “The day I will be sworn in, I will deliver my inaugural speech in Igbo. Our people must learn to speak our language.

“Prof Pita Ejiofor is an advocate of that and we will support his efforts in ensuring that Igbo language does not go into extinction. Our people should be proud of their language.
“I’m a lawyer and I made an A in the English language in school certificate in 1971, and I speak the language very well, but we should place our language(Igbo) in the forefront.

Okolo stated this while addressing APGA Executive members in the Nnewi North Local Government Area of the state on Wednesday.

He said,”The party in its wisdom directed that aspirants should stop going to the state headquarters for declaration. I was already billed to visit the headquarters but because of that, I decided to focus on the local governments.

“The directive was to put a stop to certain things that are happening in the party and I am quite in agreement with that decision.
“It was not meant to favour anybody. The party has no candidate. INEC has already released is timetable for the November 6 election and the timetable shows that party primaries will take place in June 2021. We are only in March and so people should stop making insinuations
He said he was happy with the large number of aspirants vying on APGA platform, stating ” the more, the merrier.

He said, “I’m happy that many people have shown interest to contest under APGA. At the end of the day, the champion will emerge.

“To the delegates, our appeal is that all delegates from Nnewi should vote for me. You should also help to persuade delegates from other local governments to vote for me.”