“Watch out for the joy-stealers: gossip, criticism, complaining,
faultfinding, and a negative, judgmental attitude.” ~ Joyce Meyer
Electoral contests are like every other game: he who wishes to win must
also learn how to lose. There are no provisions for “draws” in electoral
contests and those who engage must be prepared for one of two outcomes;
victory or defeat.
But where a loser refuses to accept defeat we refer to such people as sore
losers.
Clearly Alex Otti is a sore loser who is finding it extremely difficult to
accept his electoral decimation by “common” Okezie Ikpeazu that he wrote
off even before the contest started.
To underscore the above, it is important to note two events that unfolded
after the highest court in Nigeria affirmed the victory of PDP’s Okezie
Ikpeazu over Alex Otti of APGA.
First was the vehement refusal of Otti to congratulate Governor Ikpeazu
after the Supreme Court verdict. Compare that to Dakuku Peterside of
Rivers’ APC and Emeka Ihedioha of PDP Imo State who promptly congratulated
Governors Nyesom Wike and Rochas Okorocha, respectively, after the Supreme
Court ruled on their even more fiercely contested elections.
Days after his resounding unanimous defeat at the Supreme Court, Otti
returned to Aba and organized a motley crowd of supporters mostly ferried
in from Anambra and Rivers state at Etche Road field for what he termed
“thanksgiving service”. In the course of that gathering he was introduced
as “Governor of Abia State” several times by different speakers including
the Chairman of APGA. He did not at any time correct the treasonable
misrepresentation but audaciously told his audience to expect something to
“happen before December 2016” that will catapult him (Otti) to Umuahia
government house.
Yet the real Governor of Abia State, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu, preferred to
indulge him and continued to focus on his job of governing Abia State.
May be that was a mistake.
While I was enjoying my democracy day vacation, my attention was drawn to
a widely circulating malicious publication titled “one year down the line,
light is yet to come to Abia”. It was sponsored and endorsed by the same
defeated APGA candidate, Alex Otti, and his social media employees who are
still smarting from the disappointment of the irreversible defeat by Dr
Okezie Ikpeazu gleefully circulated it at social media.
When I finally found time to read a copy of his advertorial published by
two newspapers and circulated by his social media hirelings, the contents
shocked me even though I have always known Otti and his people to be
masters of lies and half truths. It was a new low and a script written by
a still sore loser seeking to keep his gullible audience high on overdose
of his readily available hallucinatory conjectures.
Otti’s tissues of lies publications clearly confirmed that he is not on
ground in Abia but merely receive his information from social media gossip
publications as the anointed “Abia Facebook Governor”. Like a popular
proverb says: “Gossiping and lying go hand in hand.” If Otti or his
hirelings live and pay taxes in Abia they would have had firsthand
knowledge of progressive events in the state since Dr Okezie Ikpeazu
ascended a year ago and be able to express informed opinions on issues
regarding Abia.
Even the blind in Abia can see the improvement in infrastructural
development at Aba and other towns in Abia. The deaf must have heard of
the good works of “Okezuo Abia” while the populations of those that are
high on Otti’s propaganda overdose have diminished drastically since May
2015 that Okezie resumed at work to flag off reconstruction of four roads
at Aba.
I challenge Mr Otti and his goons to come down from the air and undertake
a tour with me round Aba and Abia to show them what Governor Okezie was
able to achieve even in the midst of ill advised distractions from Otti
and his co-travelers.
Firstly, for the avoidance of doubt, the Eze of Nenu is alive and well,
contrary to the malicious lies of Alex Otti in his advertorial. Again, I
invite the media to travel to the Obingwa community where he presides and
meet with the Eze that our sore election loser claimed was murdered by
kidnappers.
But the fact of the Eze being alive and well does not in any way say that
there are no security challenges at Aba or Abia. Those who know Abia will
tell you that Aba is central to the south east and south south. Security
challenges in neighboring states surely affect Abia and since Otti lost at
the Supreme Court there have been further spikes in security incidences
including the well reported one involving the abduction of a trader at Aba
and his recovery by security forces at a community close to Otti’s
ancestral hometown that led to the demolition of kidnappers den recently.
Ordinarily, it is tempting to remind Otti of the armed thugs from Aguleri
and others he imported into Aba during the polls. Have they been disarmed
or still hanging around Abia to wait for the promised November 2016
swearing in of Alex Otti?
As responsible citizens, we hope and pray there are no plans by desperate
office seekers to murder the traditional ruler of Nenu Autonomous
Community, Eze Nguma Iregbu, and hang it on Okezie government. The same
way Obingwa INEC office was burnt during the polls. We call on security
agents to take necessary steps to protect the life of the Eze and that of
all Abians and residents.
It is also important that Mr Otti consider availing security agent’s
detailed information on how he got the news of the kidnap and killing of
the Eze. Obviously it must have been the same source he got information on
the purported assassination attempt on him at Abuja while he was actually
in Abia, according to him.
The most disheartening part of Otti’s advertorial to me personally was his
attempt to politicize the death of another community leader from my
hometown, Senator Onyeka Okoroafor, who ill advisedly backed him during
the polls. Coming from a man whose supposed best friend and great Abiriba
son died recently in a US hospital after a brief illness and in spite of
the availability of the best medical facilities in the world, it is the
height of irresponsibility to link Senator Onyeka’s death to “poor medical
facilities at Aba”.
For the records, Chief Onyeka reportedly died of complications related to
ruptured appendix a day after arriving Aba from Abuja. How that ailment
was not diagnosed and treated at Otti’s “Abuja” till the appendix burst
and the man had to be rushed to the teaching hospital at Aba is something
some of us are still asking questions about. Could it be that such a
frontline supporter of Otti’s ill fated ambition wasn’t able to find or
pay for life saving Medicare at Abuja where he was abandoned by Otti until
it was too late for his life to be saved at Aba? Only Otti will have
answers but I know for a fact that people still die under the best medical
doctors and facilities in the world. Otti should know that more than any
other peson.
It beats my imagination that Otti prefers to use Abiriba and her great
people as political pawns in his continuing rage against his political
conqueror. Does he have to mention Senator Onyeka’s name or the “Abiriba
man from abroad….” to drive home his lies? May be it is time for Abiriba
community leaders to rise up and tell Otti that elections are over and we
wish to support Governor Ikpeazu to make Abia greater. Since the creation
of Abia State no other Governor has done for our community what Governor
Ikpeazu is doing for us including the construction of Abiriba Ring Road,
remediation of Abiriba round about gully erosion and re-certification of
Okezie School of Midwifery among others, Nobody anointed Otti to speak for
us and we surely should no longer tolerate his continued meddling in
Abiriba affairs even to the extent of deciding for us who to invite to
traditional ceremonies like burials or how to mourn our children. Enough!
Governor Okezie has retooled security forces in Abia to enhance their
capacity to fight crimes such as kidnapping and armed robbery. In one year
he has donated more than 30 vehicles to the police and the military, fully
fitted with communication gadgets. In addition to that, he is
strengthening community policing through the expansion and retraining of
the state vigilante services. Just weeks ago he approved the recruitment
of additional 7540 able bodied youths to join the service and work with
the police to safeguard Abia communities.
We are not the only state facing the challenge of kidnapping and armed
robbery but our Governor has shown determination to tackle the situation
and safeguard lives and properties within his constitutional powers. Even
states in the north like Kano and Kaduna are witnessing upsurge in kidnap
cases. Yet Governor Okezie considers the menace of armed robbery and
kidnapping major threats to his economic growth agenda especially with
regards to Aba as the commercial hub of Abia and the South East. While he
will continue to support security agents to confront and defeat the
criminals he is also embarking on aggressive job creation drive to ensure
that our youths are gainfully employed and unavailable to be used as thugs
or sent on kidnap missions by desperately sore politicians.
Okezie’s job creation efforts include launching an education for
employment scheme aimed at training youths in appropriate skills and
helping them to find jobs or become self employed. Private entrepreneurs
like tailors and shoe makes are receiving material support and training to
profitably improve their output and margins to enable them support and
benefit from the governor’s aggressive promotion of made in Abia goods. He
is also supporting the resuscitation of moribund factories like Aba Glass
Industry and Golden Guinea breweries to enable those plants add more jobs.
An ongoing Intra-city transport scheme is currently delivering over 120
taxis to Abia youths with more expected in the coming months. In just one
year he has added nearly 20,000 new jobs. including private sector jobs.
In summary the approach of Governor Okezie to meeting the challenge of
armed robbery and kidnapping includes supporting security agents to do
their jobs in a smarter and more efficient way as well as providing jobs
for our youths to remove them from the temptation of engaging in crimes.
Otti’s disruptive rhetoric, including categorizing criminals into APGA and
PDP members, is to say the least unfortunate and unhelpful. When criminals
are arrested Otti’s vuvuzelas quickly allege political persecution as if
there are people wearing APGAor PDP badges on their foreheads while
committing crimes.
Otti really needs to snap out of his electoral defeat mode quickly.
It should be recalled that after his final defeat at the Supreme Court, Mr
Otti rejected the olive branch extended to him by Governor Ikpeazu who
also invited him to come and join hands with him to further develop Abia.
Just like he rejected post-election overtures by many well meaning Abians
to settle electoral disputes outside the courts and avoid unnecessary
distraction of the new Governor with litigations after the supplementary
Governorship polls.
In case he does not know, many in Abia readily point to Otti’s propaganda
driven legal challenge as potentially distracting to the new Government
that had to endure nine months of frivolous litigations while also
delivering dividends to Abians. Why should it be same Otti that will be
raving and ranting about wasted first year when he practically attempted
to waste 9 months of Governor Okezie’s one year?
I make bold to state that if Otti had spent just 30% of the money he was
wasting on litigations from tribunal to Supreme Court in building just
one factory at Aba many of our youths would have been gainfully employed.
It is a shame that to date Otti does not have a single job creating
investment in Abia yet he rushes to whine about high crime rate in a state
he only visits with retinue of paid security agents armed to the teeth,
for only political purposes.
Where in Abia is Otti’s job creating business or philanthropic works located?
Otti may not have used the new roads constructed by Okezie but he should
at least ask those living at Aba. They will tell him that Ukaegbu, Ehere,
Umuojima/MCC, Owerri, Omni, Ochefu, Umuocham, Kamalu, Umuola, Umule, East,
SDA off Udeagbala, MCC, Umuocham/Umule express link road, Adazi, Tonimas
off PH Express, Park, St Michael’s, and many other roads have been
reconstructed with gutters and street lighting for at least 18 roads. They
will also tell him about extensive drainage desilting works that saved Aba
from flooding during the heavy rains of last year as well as the dredging
of waterside to receive more storm water.
If Otti comes down from the air and visit Abia today he will see that
Governor Okezie is actively working on 67 roads with 28 fully delivered
while others like Abiriba Ring road, Idima-Abam and Arochukwu roads are
partially realized. Road 2 at world bank Umuahia, Uwalaka, Kaduna,
Umuwaya, Dozie way and other roads have been delivered at Umuahia while
Aba Road-Ubakala junction dualization is ongoing alongside 4 other roads
at Umuahia.
Contrary to Otti’s propaganda and lies, Governor Okezie is even working on
more roads, by kilometers, in Abia North where Otti is from than at Aba.
So what exactly is his beef?
As further proof of his lying nature, Otti alleged that a report from the
Debt Management Office (DMO) placed Abia as the most indebted state with
N78b loans. For a supposed first class graduate, that is shocking. NO SUCH
REPORT EXISTS FROM DMO. What our propaganda challenged sore loser may have
been referring to was a Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report that
individual borrowing by private businessmen in Abia was N78b. How does
that translate to Governor Okezie exposing Abia to debt of N78b? How are
we even sure Otti’s personal loans are not part of the reported amount?
It is unfortunate that Otti has refused to snap out of his sore losing
mode to join hands with Governor Ikpeazu and contribute in a more
meaningful way to Abia’s development. It also beats my imagination that
Otti who has been intimately involved and acted as unofficial financial
adviser to the Governors of Abia from 1999 to 2015 is the same person
railing against those Governors and Governments. He needs to come clean
with common Abians and tell us what exactly he was doing for our former
Governors that he is now calling names because one of them listened to the
cry of Abians for equity in power distribution.
Who exactly are those elders being paid N1m monthly as alleged by Otti?
Abians want names and evidence. Not campaign style noise. Elections are
over and if Otti dares to name the elders we will haunt them down and
recover our money. We don’t need Otti’s empty court threat. Give us names
and figures or shut up sir.
Truth be told, revenue to Abia State from federal allocations have dropped
by more than 50%. Before Dr Okezie came to power the state was receiving
around N4b monthly with a wage bill of about N2.5b. Just last month the
state received N1.7b as allocation. It is not peculiar to Abia and even
oil rich Rivers state recently applied for bailout loan of N10b to enable
it pay salaries after receiving N3.5b as allocation. Niger state and more
than 28 other states have declared their inability to pay salaries because
of dwindling allocations. In case Otti does not know, Nigeria is in dire
economic straits such that even the federal government is complaining
about salary load.
For the avoidance of doubt, salary payments are currently being rotated by
the state government such that one group will be behind by a month before
the next allocation. Is it Otti’s position that the government should use
the N1.7b allocation and add whatever is received as IGR and pay salaries
alone then forget every other responsibility of government? If that be the
case, thank God we didn’t make the mistake of voting for Otti.
I know for a fact that nothing gives Dr Ikpeazu more sleepless nights than
the challenge of paying salaries every 25th as he promised during the
campaigns. But then when he made that promise Abia’s financials were
healthier. It is on record that under pressure in December 2015 with
allocation of about N2b Dr Okezie ensured that workers were paid by 23rd
of December.
If Otti had obtained published figures on allocations to Abia he possibly
would have been asking how Governor Okezie is keeping Abia state going
with new projects being commissioned almost weekly without substantially
increasing the tax burden of Abians, particularly the long suffering
traders at Aba. May be Otti would have opted to impose new levies on the
traders to fund his champagne lifestyle.
How does one separate workers at a local government into PDP and APGA
outside the fertile imaginative minds of a sore loser? What exactly did
Alex mean when he wrote that “Umuahia South LGA, workers who are accused
of being anti PDP have been denied their salaries for about 7 months as
against their pro PDP counterparts who are owed for only about 2 months.
Some of them have been given punitive transfers to hostile local
governments to encourage them to resign.”
In the first place civil servants are expected to maintain political
neutrality and as far as I know voting in Nigeria is via secret ballot.
All the LGAs in Abia have PDP members as transition heads. How does one
identify individuals who voted for APGA or PDP prior to preparation of pay
roll? Does that not confirm the fact of Otti’s patronage of gossip news
sources? That Otti has tried to politicize every single activity in Abia
should now be clear to all. Just like his goons will rush to claim that a
captured kidnapper was arrested by soldiers because he is an APGA member
even when the man confessed to his crime.
If indeed Governor Okezie is punishing those who didn’t vote for him what
is he doing working on Aba, Abiriba and Arochukwu roads? I suppose Otti’s
unfounded rants should provide a window to how he would have governed Abia
if God had allowed his elaborate rigging scheme to work. Fortunately for
Abians, Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is not Alex Otti. He does not even care
about who voted for him or not hence his offer of olive branch to the
defeated Otti to come and join him in growing Abia. Apparently Otti’s
malicious mindset prevented him from taking up the offer.
Otti and his band of social media desperadoes who aptly tagged him “Abia’s
Facebook Governor” should come down to Abia and pay taxes so we can have
more money for development projects. Spreading distracting lies against
Okezie’s administration is not what Abia needs now. Even those who voted
for Otti at Aba are celebrating that God gave Abia Governor Ikpeazu.
This same clique of desperadoes were running round Abuja whispering lies
to everyone who cared to listen to the effect that Governor Ikpeazu was
sponsoring IPOB protests. When that failed they resorted to recruiting
paid social medial activists to tarnish the governor’s image through the
malicious claim that Governor Ikpeazu ordered the unfortunate incident at
National High School involving IPOB members and security agents. Haba
Otti!
While the Governor and his team may have decided to ignore the malicious
lies of Otti, his latest concoctions appear over the cliff, even for a man
known to hug gossip and form opinions from such dark sources.
I urge all Nigerians, especially young impressionable Abians at social
media, to totally ignore the malicious ranting of Alex Otti. If anything,
put him to task and ask him to point out any public comment he made, for
instance, to demand the release of Nnamdi Kanu or the location of his
employment generating business in Abia. Otti and his supporters who sought
to make political capital out of the Biafra agitations by suggesting that
Governor Okezie was sponsoring IPOB do not deserve your listening ears.
They are liars of Abia State.
On his claims regarding bailout funds, that should not be surprising
coming from a man who lives in the air, Lagos or Abuja but was only
interested in buying the governorship of Abia as a trophy. Everyone in
Abia is aware that the state collected N14.1b bailout loan and Governor
Okezie Ikpeazu promptly constituted a committee that included
representatives of NLC, TUC and others to disburse the funds. The
committee concluded its assignment and produced a report detailing how
they disbursed the loan. Otti and his gang must have seen that report, if
indeed they have genuine interest in the affairs of the state. ICPC
applauded Governor Ikpeazu for the transparent way he handled the bailout
disbursement and Otti can ask ICPC for their report.
If the orchestrated lies and propaganda by Otti and his social media
recruits are part of the plot to “remove Okezie before December 2016” as
per his Etche field declaration it will surely fail like other desperate
plots by the same band of desperadoes. Power belongs to God and He has
chosen Dr Okezie over Otti. The earlier Otti and his co-travelers realize
that the better for Abia.
It is not the fault of Dr Ikpeazu or his supporters that Otti is currently
out of job. Rather than Otti and his goons attacking the Governor and the
current commissioner of Finance, he may wish to reach out directly to the
Governor to lobby for the office of the commissioner of Finance in Abia
State. If he is better qualified than the incumbent he just might be
hired.
It is time for well meaning Abians to ask Alex Otti to stop maliciously
distracting Governor Okezie Ikpeazu. The Governor and his team have been
transparent in letting Abians know the true state of our finance,
including monthly information on Federal allocation to the state. If a
state that was previously receiving an average of N4b monthly is receiving
N1.7b in the month of April 2016, Abians expect adjustments in expenditure
patterns. Such a situation calls for support to the government and
understanding. Not desperate distractions.
Those who have Otti’s ears should tell him that it is high time he starts
making tangible contributions to Abia’s development instead of offering
maliciously polarizing commentaries on Abia affairs. We want to read about
his job creating business investment in Abia or acts of philanthropy aimed
at supporting common folks of Abia. And while at it please ask Otti the
same question Sean Covey asked years ago: “Isn’t it kind of silly to think
that tearing someone else down builds you up?”
Governor Okezie certainly has not done everything there is to do in Abia
but real Abians know that he has done some things and he is certainly on
track.