Abia Guber 2023: Otti’s Ambition Driven By Passion, Not Desperation
By Ugochukwu Okobi
ABIA, God’s Own State, is indeed blessed with great men and women who have earned global recognition, having excelled in their respective fields of endeavour. The state is also bountifully endowed with material and mineral resources, including the almighty oil and gas, that could help to launch the state on the path of sustainable socio-economic transformation, if properly harnessed and utilised.
Unfortunately, the political activities that heralded the return of democratic governance in 1999 threw up some ambitious elements with questionable and uncertain track records, character and pedigree. The extraneous forces that combined to deliver power to former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, OUK, have over the years proved not to be well-meaning for Abia and its good people, considering Kalu’s shoddy and lack-lustre performance in his eight years in office.
There is no gainsaying the fact that OUK had a golden opportunity to lay a solid foundation that could propel enduring growth and development of the state. But he preferred to squander it due largely to his inordinate ambition. So, today, the result of his failings still reverberates and continues to hold the state down, economically and infrastructurally. That he handed over the state to Chief Theodore Orji, also known as Ochendo, who was his chief of staff for eight years, is no longer news. So also is his chequered post-election relationship with Ochendo as his godfather. Ochendo’s eight-year reign was all about what was aptly described as stomach infrastructure.
His era was about the luckiest in terms of the country’s huge revenue earnings. So, there was so much money to share and throw about. Remember the excess crude money and Paris Club Refund! These were unexpected revenues at the disposal of the governors. However the governors spent the “excess liquidity” was their prerogative, leading flambouyance. In Abia, one could hardly point to any meaningful and enduring projects that gulped the humongous Abia share of both the Excess Crude and Paris Club Refund monies. Little wonder, therefore, why Ochendo threw caution to the wind and stopped at nothing to ensure he installed another surrogate and also post an eight-year performance that is not only below average but woeful. And he found that stooge in Dr Okezie Victor Ikpeazu.
It’s not surprising, therefore, why on April 12, 2015, Ochendo, accompanied by some daring chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of that horrendous era, intimidated and arm twisted the then Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Stella Oko, and State Returning Officer, Prof. Benjamin Ozumba and seized the electoral mandate freely and generously handed down to Otti by the wonderful Abia electorate from all sections of the state.
Indeed, a thorough scrutiny of Abia’s development trajectory under the successive democratic governments, from 1999 to date, shows a clear picture of 24 years of holocaust, impoverishment of the masses, abject poverty, hunger, crime, huge arrears of unpaid salaries, pensions and gratuities, dilapidated schools and health facilities, an under-employment and unemployment rate that grew in geometric proportion, agony and despondency among the citizenry, stunted socio-economic development under the PDP political leaders and their elderly accomplices. And rather than play the honourable role of respected elder statesmen by moderating the excesses of their benefactors in power, these PDP elder statesmen continued to savour the blood tonic purchased with misappropriated workers’ salaries and pensions.
This is the reason they lacked the moral courage to speak against the continued misrule by the past and present administrations, misapplication of state resources and pervasive decay in infrastructure. It is for this class of Abians that the German-born Physicist, Albert Einstein, said: “The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.” It is a statement of fact that Abia’s sorry state became more appalling and deserving of an urgent rescue mission during the twilight of Ochendo’s visionless and unproductive eight years and Ikpeazu’s rudderless, uninspiring and clueless administration. It is basically the deplorable state of affairs in the state that obviously got Dr Alex Otti, a renowned economist, banker and investor, persuaded to take a foray into the murky waters of politics to quickly halt the steady and worrisome drift of the state deep down the quagmire.
It is on record that Otti resigned his juicy appointment as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the defunct Diamond Bank Plc, one of the leading financial institutions in the country then, to vie for Abia governorship seat in 2015. He did not jump into the fray for want of job or resources to fend for himself and family. As he would always say, “God has blessed me and I cannot pretend about it. I am not looking for what to eat. I have enough to take care of my small-size family and my needs are not much. I am not a politician but I am in this race to change the ugly narrative of Abia. Abia looks like a cursed state but God has given us everything. The problem of the state are the bad leaders. We allow those who are poor to govern the state and they ended up amassing wealth and impoverishing the masses but this must stop.”
It certainly would be preposterous for any reasonable person or group to attribute Otti’s commitment and passion to rescue Abia from its present precarious condition to desperation. At a recent interactive meeting with stakeholders from Ehere Autonomous Community in Obingwa Local Government Area, a certain anonymous person in the crowd asked him: “Why are you desperate to govern Abia State?” In a classical response, he said that he was desperate to become the state governor in order to rescue Abia from the grip of those responsible for its gross underdevelopment, non payment of salaries and pensions. Otti said: “I am desperate to be governor to work for Abia and rescue you from bondage. I am desperate to come and pay the salary of workers, teachers and pensioners, who have been neglected. I am desperate to build modern hospitals, quality infrastructure and good schools for our children. I am desperate to get Abia developed so that we cease to be a laughing stock in the comity of states. If this is what it means to be desperate, then I am desperate. Enough is enough. Abia must move forward.”
He further contended that “it is those who stole my mandate in 2015 that are desperate. This is why they have been in power for eight years without having anything meaningful to show for it.” So, simpy put, rather than desperation, Otti’s ambition to govern Abia is driven essentially by his undying love for his state and passion to rescue it from further fleecing and plundering of its resources and impoverishment of the masses by the unscrupulous, greedy politicians.
It is not disputable that Otti roundly won the 2015 governorship election but suffered a broad daylight robbery in the hands of those who have perpetuated poverty and suffering in Abia since 1999. Even those, who stole his mandate are adjudged and condemned by their consciences as guilty. But he has put all the experience behind him, convinced that God’s time is the best and that time is now.
The recent unfolding political developments
*Okobi, a public affairs commentator, wrote from Aba, Abia State
