BREAKING NEWS: Alex Otti withdraws from Abia guber race

Information reaching our news desk indicates that the APGA Gubernatorial candidate for the Abia State supplementary election may have decided to throw in the towel. According to some sources in his team, Dr Alex Otti appears to be uninterested with the supplementary election following the refusal of INEC to cancel the results of the following Local Government Areas: Osisioma PDP 42,122 APGA 1017 Obingwa PDP 82, 240 APGA 1952 and Isiala Ngwa North PDP 19798 APGA 6853.

We had reported earlier that Dr Alex Otti and his Party, APGA filled a protest to JEGA when the results of Osisioma, Obingwa and Isiala Ngwa North which were erroneously cancelled and reversed by the INEC RO in Abia following an observation made by an Observer during the State Result Collation. As it stands, Supplementary Elections will be held only at those Polling Units and Wards in Abia State that were cancelled by the RO, this was made clear by INEC as confirmed by JEGA at a press briefing during the week.

Breaking News!! Python attacked APGA Abia Guber candidate, ALEX Otti

The new house of Alex Otti in Nvosi his adopted home in isiala Ngwa south was thrown into confusion last night , as a big python chased out Otti and his party members from the mansion, forcing them to relocate to a hotel in Aba.

Our source who broke the news said that its a sign of rejection by Ngwa people . According to our source, Otti has abandoned the mansion for a long time as he lives in the hotel.

He said this python saga may not be unconnected with the recent action of Isiala Ngwa traditional rulers who withdrew their blessings and honour earlier showered on Otti as they insisted that it was done in error.

Otti is from Aro , the python will chase him back there our source stated.

Breaking News: Supporters of Reagan Ufomba clash with supporters of Alex Otti

Supporters of Reagan Ufomba, the factional APGA Governorship Candidate in Abia State today clashed with the Supporters of Alex Otti, another factional APGA Governorship Candidate in Abia State.

Information reaching us through an eye witness report states that the Alex Otti group attacked supporters of Reagan Ufomba at the popular Ntigha Junction along Enugu/ Portharcourt (Umuahia/Aba axis) leading to the country home of Reagan Ufomba following a rift that ensued when Alex Otti led APGA campaign trail tried forcing their way into Ntigha after being warned by Reagan Ufomba's APGA group to stay clear of Ntigha, the country home of Reagan Ufomba.

Our reporters gathered so far that scores of people were reportedly injured including one APGA Chieftain, Chief Johnson Chukwu. We shall bring you more details soon

Culled from: Naijanetwork news page

Orji Uzor Kalu and his many faces of lies and deceits

Couple of months ago, the former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu made a public declaration through his SUN Newspaper that he is back to PDP and that he never belonged to PPA. He went as far as lying before the people that his PPA Senatorial form was purchased and filled by one of his aides who he demanded to make a public apology for getting a form for him without his consent.
For some of us who are familiar with his tricks and deceptions, knowing his criminal activities in the past and present, we concluded that OUK is applying his usual Gamji way of life in an era of political sanity in Abia State.

Nevertheless, a man who cannot change will never change and thank God the PDP leadership at the National level and President Goodluck Jonathan accepted the rejection of the chameleon by Abians facilitated by Abia PDP stakeholders and other well meaning Abians.

However, it is now made open to the General Public that the Man who castigated the leadership of the PDP in Abia State for letting the world know that one person cannot belong to two different political parties at the same time. Especially into a strong a Party that won all the elections in Abia State in 2011 without a mediocre going about with a virus with intention to destroy that which he couldn't build.
Now it is officially official that Orji Uzor Kalu (OUK) is the Abia North Senatorial Candidate for the PPA, the Party he founded and funded. As usual, he sneaked into his Igbere Country Home few days ago to begin his campaign for the Senate.

Interestingly, he is a candidate that saw a big disgraceful defeat in 2011 when he contested for Senate under his PPA Platform and in 2015, my very good friend and a credible candidate from Arochukwu, Mazi Mao Ohuabunwa, the PDP Senatorial Candidate for Abia North will finally facilitate his final political burial.
Orji Uzor Kalu must be in another world if he ever think that Abians that rejected him and his mother wouldn't reject him again. Nonetheless, the people of Abia North especially the great people of Abiriba that he caused so much pains upon by destroying their beautiful community are fortunately alive to pay him back once.

We will all live to celebrate yet another political defeat of a man who ruled a State without a single visible project but left Abia indebted to different financial houses and to the people. 

Nnaji writes from Umuahia

THE BANKER WHO MURDERED DATA

The status of some individuals should guarantee respectability and heighten personality. Conversely, the behavior and utterances of some of our politicians raises a lot of doubt about their claims of the ability to govern and thus sends the wrong signals to our budding youths. Our upcoming generation should in the real sense learn from the older people, especially the so called upper class. Such despicable behaviors in our adults who are expected to leave examples have given politicians dirtier names than was previously ascribed to them.

Should people who aspire to lead the country and the states be a merchant of lies? Should a party flag bearer at the level of governorship blackmail to occupy the topmost seat? Should not his ways and manners, speeches and utterances be a standard which others should emulate? That the wrong people for one reason or the other have found their ways to top political situations where they did not merit to be is no reason that we should continue to lower the average thus spiraling down and down in the scale of honour.

On Sunday February 15, 2015, on page 54 of the Sunday Vanguard, one Charles Uzoukwu wrote in favour of Alex Otti and his gubernatorial quest. I wouldn’t have written because a lot of trash keeps dropping on daily bases but this case impugns on data and it is necessary for us to correct lest other unsuspecting members of the public take it as truth.

Oddly enough, this wrong statistics ought not to be bandied by Alex and his group as we assume that they know better. You don’t need blackmail as a tool if you have facts. Ordinarily, somebody at the level of Otti who stepped off a high stool in the banking industry where facts and figures are more sacred than other places shouldn’t be caught telling blatant lies and feeding the public with faulty data in today’s world of data super high way.

According to what Charles heard from Alex Otti, Abia is the least developed of all states with many years of failed promises from PDP, the same PDP that Otti first berthed and ravenously wanted to purchase the guber ticket. According to Otti too, ‘statistics show that mortality rate in Abia, particularly at child birth is among the highest in the country.’ These are white lies and I am sure that people who follow trends in Nigeria will attest that Abia even in the next two years without a single medical input in the health sector and without a new project be it in road, housing, education, human development that you call empowerment, Abia cannot fall into such degradation. That’s due to work already done, by the present administration. Abia cannot he the least developed. I will give instances.
Abia Health is the most robust and has gone through quantum changes. Ask Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu, former Minister for health who when in office visited Abia for not less than three times. In these visits, he commissioned one vital project or the other and suggested on areas where urgent attention were necessary. His Excellency Chief T. A. Orji took him seriously and carried out whatever suggestions as if they were laws. The Primary Health Centres have been updated to 710 which at the same time offer maternity services. He has equally updated what he met at the secondary and tertiary health sectors with dialysis machines, 10 new General Hospitals, Eye, Chest Centres and a place for ENT. To enhance healthcare, Abia pays the CONHESS and CONMESS, special salary scales for health staff.

In 2013, at the 37th AGM/Scientific Conference of National Association of Optometrists, [NOA] Chief Orji was awarded Prime Ambassador of the Health Sector. Medical and Dental council of Nigeria has approved Abia state specialist Hospital and Diagnostic centre for medical internship training. Could a state rated this high by a professional organ have high rates of mortality?

Abia State since 2007 has witnessed development in all sectors. More schools have been built, refurbished and re-equipped. More teachers have been promoted and schools enrolments have increased. For the seven years and more, no single student and pupil in primary and secondary has paid a dime in school fees rather the ones in Umuahia and Aba go to school on Government sponsored wheels. Abia could not hold high caliber conferences but now could do so with the multi-floored and multi-roomed International Conference Center accredited to rub shoulders with the ones in the top cities of South Africa. Abia has an 90% completed Government House, functional E-Library, new Civil Service Secretariat, new business Malls in Umuahia and Aba, power evacuated from the Ohiya power station which has improved energy supply in Umuahia, and neighboring towns like, Oboro, Obowo, Uzoakoli, Bende etc. Our youths have been empowered beyond expectations in all the LGAs.

The security situation that frightened the brave and lion hearted were handled with utmost dexterity making a police boss to admit that Abia is a case study.
There is gender sensitivity with more women appointed and elevated. There are policy overhauls that ensures the continuous existence of interventionist agencies like ASOPADEC, CSDP, ADP, ABIA LIBERATION FARM, ABROMA, that are concurrently carrying out projects in different parts of the state. Are these components of underdevelopment? That shows how ignorant and poorly equipped a man who vaunts to govern a state is. It practically means that if Otti is elected, he would invest public fund in the wrong sector as he does not know where the shoe pinches.

So many questions for Alex Otti. Outside his misinformation, there are many issues on integrity. He consolidated his Aro personality by building in Arochukwu. When the present policy insisted in zoning, he changed nativity with the speed of lightening. These are certainly no marks of greatness. Alex refused to respect equity. His ancestral home of Arochukwu, land of great men and his adopted home of Nvosi in Isiala Ngwa North are all not in Abia South which probably was the reason he skedaddled from PDP in a feat of desperation.

As a successful citizen from the banking industry, we expect more good examples from Alex on decorum not marginality. Let him too be careful of what he says today for these may come back to haunt him or his offspring tomorrow.

Eddie Onuzuruike

Breaking News! Abia2015: APGA Merges With PPA As Otti Steps Down For Udensi

Information just reaching our news room from a very reliable source indicates that the Abia state chapter of APGA has reached to a consensus agreement with PPA for the guber election coming up on 11th April. The APGA candidate Otti who has been having a running battle with Diamond bank lately agreed in principle to step down and support udensi while Udensi will provide funds to assist him offset his debt with Diamond Bank . Otti had approached Udensi for assistance following repeated threats by Diamond bank to drag him to EFCC if he fails to recover the Bank’s funds borrowed to Abia state government under Otti, before the end of this February. The Bank is afraid that the next government may refuse to redeem the debts if Otti fails to win the gubernatorial election as the deals were executed under questionable circumstances and without following due process.

Abia state government had on 6th February denied owing any bank but insisted that Alex Otti was heavily indebted to many banks including Diamond bank. In a swift reaction on the number of claims raised by the state APGA governorship candidate including the challenge thrown by Dr. Alex Otti on the state government to make public the debt profile of the state under the administration of Governor Orj, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr. ACB Agbazuere, debunked the claim saying that the state was not indebted to any bank.

"Alex Otti is talking like a politician not as a banker, who is just coming up in the game of politics. He thinks that politics means lying and fabrication of stories. Abia State has no debt profile; we do not owe. If we are owing, let him tell us, Alex Otti is owing, he is owing most of the banks; Abia State is not owing,' the commissioner stated.

Abia State government is alleged to be indebted to Diamond Bank PLC to the sum of N8.5bn accruing from N500m loan granted to each of the 17 local Governments of the State. This amount is alleged to be exclusive of $250m bond given to Abia State government in 2010 by Diamond bank PLC under Otti’s watch as the managing director.

Alex Otti as a political 419ner

By Madubuko Hart

It has become obvious that the charade governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has been making promises upon promises in his continuous efforts to mislead the people of the state.
As if there is such a thing going on in the state, he recently said that he would abolish multiple taxation in the state if he is voted into power. But the truth is that Governor Theodore Orji-led government of the state is innocent of all the mudslingings from Otti against him.
If Orji were wicked as Otti had made many people to believe in his brigandage called campaign, Otti would have been on the run in Abia State by now, hence he should be praising Governor Orji instead of castigate an innocent man because of the lucre for power.
From the same Ubakala in Umuahia where Otti had gone to address party supporters during his campaign tour of Bende and Umuahia South Local Government Areas of the state and showed his utter hatred for Orji, was from where news filtered into the air later that both traders, market men and women, artisans, transporters, industrialists and other business concerns, said that Governor Orji is the best and that Otti was making noise that they were being over-taxed.
What a better way to become a political 419ner if not the lies by Otti that businesses are particularly affected in Aba and Umuahia, for who knows what Otti was talking about. He should name any teacher in the state that said he or she is being owed salary in the state before talking trash that salaries of teachers are withheld in the state.
When was Otti employed by the Abia State Government to be its auditor before lying himself badly that arrears of pensioners and teachers’ salaries are owed? We have in other articles informed the world that Otti is running issue-baseless campaign just to score cheap publicity; but he is doomed and he knows about this. This is the major reason he is biting left, right and centre like an entrapped snake.
His boast that he would take over power by May 29 this year is one of his numerous tactics in his continuous ways to be milking his donors he has been sulking dry. Otti is a man that has been gasping for breathe knowing that Ndi-Abia have rejected him woefully because he is not transparent at all.
Imagine a man like that came through the APGA’s backdoor and hijacked the party and divided it abysmally. This is the character of a man who wants to rule Abia State? It is laughable when one reads or hears Otti saying that he will do this or that come May 29,2015.
Which administration was he talking about? Otti continues to lie that he was going to deploy “his international connection and exposure in attracting investment to the state”. This is a man who has not helped his impoverished siblings making such frivolous promises. If he had any connection, let alone, international connections, he would not have allowed his siblings to be roaming the streets poor.
Otti continues to lie, saying this time that he will transform Umuahia, Aba and Ohafia. How can a man who is still fighting a pedigree problem know his left from right? The truth is that Governor Orji has fulfilled all his electioneering campaign promises and stands tall to boast that he has governed Abia State according to his conscience. The likes of Otti are political 419ners.
.Hart writes from Lagos

Gov Orji: I Won’t Pass Debt Burden to My Successor

Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji, on Tuesday explained why he had continued to resist the temptation of going to the bond market to raise funds despite the financial challenges facing the state. He said he cannot afford to create a situation where his successor would inherit debt burden.

Orji bared his mind at a meeting with teachers following complaints over the irregularity in the payment of their salaries, saying he could have taken bonds and pay salaries and when his successor takes over he would be serving the bond instead of paying salaries.

“I don’t want my successor to suffer what I suffered,” he said, adding that he was saddled with huge debt burden when he took office hence he had decided to break the cycle.

The governor told the teachers that the fall in the revenue of the state, especially the ones accuring from federal allocation was impacting negatively on the ability of government to meet up with its financial obligations to the teachers regularly.
“We are incapacitated financially and finance is the engine room of governance,” he said.

According to him, there was need to explain the real situation of things to the teachers and appeal to their conscience and make them understand that everything does not end in demonstration of protest.”

He said the arrears of salaries were already being cleared, adding, “We will continue paying you all the debts we owe you. We will pay.”

Orji assured the teachers that he held them in high esteem that was why the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state chose a teacher, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, who also came from a family of teachers as the party’s governorship candidate. He urged Abia teachers to support him.

Earlier in his remarks, Ikpeazu assured the teachers that he would take care of their welfare and asked them to back his governorship ambition as the future would be made bright for them.

He said while he would strive to pay their salaries and allowances as at when due, the teachers should brace up to reciprocate by increasing their productivity and increase the quality of students and pupils that come out from Abia schools.
Meanwhile, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the state, Dr Alex Otti, has promised to abolish multiple taxation in the state, if elected.

Otti, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) made the promise at Ubakala in Umuahia while addressing his party supporters during his campaign tour of Bende and Umuahia South Local Government Areas of the state.
He expressed concern that the residents of the state, especially the traders, market men and women, artisans, transporters, industrialists and other business concerns, were being over-taxed.

He said many businesses, particularly in Aba and Umuahia, were adversely affected by the development and that many of them had relocated to other states.
The APGA governorship hopeful decried the non-payment of teachers’ salaries, as well as pensions and gratuities by the government.

“I use this opportunity to call on the outgoing administration to pay the arrears of pensions and teachers’ salaries. “But if they failed to pay, by May 29, when we take over government, I will pay the salary and pension arrears.’’

Otti promised to deploy his international connection and exposure in attracting investment to the state, so that jobs would be created for the teeming unemployed youths

He promised to transform Umuahia, Aba and Ohafia, saying that he would redesign and rebuild Aba.

He also promised to build a “state-of-the-art’’ specialist hospital in each of the three cities to enhance efficient healthcare delivery and check medical tourism outside the state.

He promised that the condition of service and salary of medical doctors would be attractive to lure back home Abia-born medical doctors plying their trade outside Nigeria.

The former Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank, who attributed his success in life to the quality of education he had, promised to introduce free and compulsory education in the state, if elected.

He promised not to receive any salary for the period of his tenure, if elected governor, as he would forfeit it to the development of the state.

“I believe that why God blessed you is for you to be a blessing to others,” he said.

Opposition Politicians and their worthless propaganda...Madubuko Hart

The opposition politicians in Abia State are playing dangerous politics of blackmail and propaganda against the government of Governor Theodore Orji. In their desperate quest in the smear campaign, they would bomb their political offices and label the government as the perpetrator.

They would want to plant dangerous weapons in the state to cause chaos and would run to the media shouting that the government was it that wanted to do so. They would not have money to pay for their children’s school fees and you see them shouting that teachers in the state are on strike.

Then it baffles one to pause how a government that had spent billions of naira in fighting insecurity that it met in the state would go back to abet it. Impossible! It will never.

It is the sheer crassness of the opposition politicians to sully the government of Governor Orji and, they are not succeeding. Governor Theodore Orji remains the only honest and sincere governor of Abia State since its creation 23 years ago. The state did not take off till Governor Orji came to power.

Because the governor has a listening ear, many people who absconded to other states like Enugu, Port Harcourt, Abuja are now returning to the state, creating full action in urban life in all areas of the state.

Governor Orji is so transparent that Abia people had wanted him for a third term in office if the constitution had allowed that. He is an honest and visionary leader. He is not into politics like some people to steal but to leverage the state from the level of woes; and he has achieved that.

One aspect of Governor Orji that is so alluring is his love for education and making sure that education in the state tops in his priorities. Youth empowerment has become his trademark, and the youths in the state would be missing him as his tenure as governor is fast approaching.

Government is continuum. I was so elated when the PDP delegates elected Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu (PhD), as the party’s flagbearer in the state. Ikpeazu is a man that knows administration and cares.

He would create a lot of job opportunities and see to the welfare of pensioners and sundry. So, Ikpeazu would be improving on the areas that the present government has laid the foundation and map out other measures on the areas where the present government is yet to carve a niche.

Abia people are not playing the ostrich and the state is not the worst state in Nigeria. It is propaganda when critics write that Aba is one of the worst towns to live in, in the world. If it is so, then the millions of people we see residing and doing business in Aba would not have been living in that place. Opposition politicians should desist from their worthless propaganda.

Hart writes from Lagos

BREAKING NEWS! EFCC ARRESTS ALEX OTTI

Reports just reaching our news desk says that the former MD of Diamond Bank has been arrested by the EFCC. Otti a factional governorship candidate of APGA in Abia state was picked up at the Murtala Mohammed Airport Lagos this morning on his way to Sam Mbakwe International Airport Owerri.

Otti our source said was arrested based on the petition written to the anti corruption agency by Diamond Bank over the missing 10 Billion Naira after the sack of Otti as the MD. When our reporter contacted the campaign manager of Otti on phone, he confirmed that his boss is in EFCC office Lagos. "My boss was not arrested, he was invited by EFCC over some issues with Diamond Bank, he will soon be released, are you ok?"  He concluded