After 300 days, we are here to review a product and a brand – the Ikpeazu Brand. This brand does not change. This brand will only innovate.

Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, as a brand, is a consistent brand with a consistent brand proposition. He has kept his word as his bond. He has remained constant and consistent in his precepts and promises. He has remained the common governor for the common man. He has remained the son of a poor teacher. He has remained the servant-leader and the classless humourist. He has not transformed from the commoner to an elite. He has not assumed the new carriage of sophistication and elegance of power and opulence. He demystified power and made it a calling and not a privilege. He has remained with his constituency – the masses.

The Ikpeazu brand promise is service and performance. This is what he has promised the people of Abia. Today, he is not only addressing the current needs of the people but their future aspiration. This is the hallmark of great brands and this is self-evident in his scorecard of performance in the last 300 days. He has remained connected with the people on a very strong emotional level. And, like every good brand, he is enjoying a fierce brand loyalty. Even his opponents can’t help but admit the truth that he is performing.

The Brand Ikpeazu is a new narrative in the history of Abia State. How is he able to construct 65 roads simultaneously with 27 fully commissioned at a time of severe economic downturn? How is he able to change the face of Aba and the entire Abia in just eight months? How did he do the magic when Abia’s federal allocation is now less than N2 billion per month? This is the new unresolved puzzle in Abia today. And the brand Ikpeazu would answer that it proceeds from the inner self, from one’s deep convictions and inspirational obsessions because where there’s a will, there’s always a way. The magic is the conviction that his journey is a calling for service and not a privilege.

The unique selling proposition of Ikpeazu brand is the constant recognition of his trajectory in power as a peculiar covenant. This self-affirmation drives the vision that has found expression in the new approach to governance in Abia State today. How do we characterise or personify the Ikpeazu brand? The brand is selfless, homely, down-to-earth and firm, creative and innovative, a restless mind but a good house-keeper.

•Being an Extract of the press briefing by the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Abia State Governor, Mr. Godwin Adindu, in his Office in Government House, Umuahia, on April 6, 2016.

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