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!!! INEC Abuja disqualifies APGA candidate in Aba North state constituency

INEC Abuja has disqualified Emeka Nnamani APGA candidate for Aba North state constituency. Emeka Nnamani aka Labi, an indigene of Enugu resident in Aba, is among the names of candidates disqualified ahead of tomorrows election.

According INEC on its website, Mr Nnamani after thorough investigation over petitions filed against his eligibility, was discovered not to have a degree from Absu as he claimed. Nnamani was rusticated by the school authority in 1993 over his involvement in cult activities that resulted in the death of two students.

He is also said to be a well known ex convict and a drug dealer. Nnamani has been on the wanted list of the police the website stated

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

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

There are more Igbos in PDP than APGA – Orji

Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State has punctured the claims by members of the All Progressive Grand Alliance canvassing votes in the state with the slogan  that ‘APGA is the only Igbo party’, dismissing the claims as a propaganda meant to deceive the gullible.

Orji, who was speaking on Thursday at a meeting with professional associations in Umuahia, said there was no iota of truth in the claims that APGA was an Igbo party, contending that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party has more Igbo members than APGA.

He said, “APGA is not Igbo party because if it is, it will be controlling all five Igbo states. It  was by accident that APGA won in Anambra State and the point man, Peter Obi, has since left APGA for PDP because he knows there is no way there.

“All those in APGA are people who left PDP; and don’t allow them to deceive you by claiming that APGA is Igbo party. PDP is a national party, which has better agenda for Ndigbo than APGA.
“APGA only adopted President Goodluck Jonathan because it has no alternative. If it thinks it has a better material, let it field its own candidate and it will fail.

“Stop listening to them when they come around to tell you to vote for Jonathan for the Presidency and APGA candidates for other elections. Their claims that Jonathan has asked them to go to APGA and contest is false because Jonathan cannot work against his party. They are not better connected to Jonathan than we are.”

Orji told the forum, attended by representatives of over 20 professional bodies in the state, that his administration had posted remarkable achievements despite declining federal allocations.
He said his performance would better be appreciated in view of the fact that he had not gone to raise funds in the capital market unlike many of his counterparts “believed to have performed wonders.”
The governor explained that his refusal to borrow money from the capital market was based on his resolve not to mortgage his successor or encumber him with debt servicing.

Orji said he would not want his successor to share his ugly  experience as he inherited huge debt from his predecessor, a development he lamented, stagnated the state’s economy.
He added that his administration had made a mark in intangible democratic gains such as peace and security, apart from identifiable physical development he said had been recorded .

Orji expressed joy that apart from emancipating the state from political bondage, his administration had also extricated the state from idolatry imposed on it by his predecessor .
“We incurred the wrath of God by the worship of effigies and demi-gods introduced by the past administration but with your support, I fought and set the state free from all such anomalies,” the governor said.

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.

Otti’s Issue-baseless Campaign

By Madubuko Hart

When the former Group Managing Director/CEO of Diamond Bank Plc, Dr. Alex Otti resigned his position to contest for the 2015 governorship of Abia State, many of us thought that an intellectual had come to the contest. But when he started his venoms against the government of Governor Theodore Orji by calling it names, we know that he had nothing to offer.

Otti who was originally from Arochukwu with his state-of-the art building built there ran away from his aboriginal village to claim Ngwa person when he heard that the governorship in the 2015 elections was zoned to the Ukwa/Ngwa area. Nonetheless, Otti was at the same time speaking from the sides of his mouth that the zoning formula had been killed. That was when he wanted to contest from his Arochukwu village. But when he saw that the governor was head bent on that Ukwa/Ngwa must produce the next governor, he shifted gear.

Otti’s initial stand was his warning to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the idea of zoning, and he said: “I learnt that you people said you have zoned the governorship to Abia South. No, it is wrong because the national leadership of the PDP had already killed the zoning arrangement in 2011. Remember, that at that time the office of the president was zoned to the North, yet the South is occupying that position today. So, the contest must be thrown open.”

Those clamouring for Otti to succeed the present governor are just doing so based on sentiment. A severe examination of the man called Otti attests that he has dubious gesticulations for power than people know. This is a man who contested the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) primary in a hotel along Aba Road, Umuahia and used faked document to announce himself winner after he was deliberately blindfolded by the so-called Victor Umeh-led national leadership of APGA to the tone of $3m.

While Otti was seeing himself as the winner of the primary election of the party, the true winner emerged in APGA in the person of Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba, who is the only credible candidate in the Abia APGA to contest the governorship election in 2015 with other political parties’ candidates.

With what Otti is causing in the state has shown the man as an unintelligent person, no matter the three doctorate degrees his garrulous campaign team has been hyping that he has. His campaign is issue-baseless and one will not restrain to qualify him as an agent sent by his paymasters to make sure that he deconstructs the government of Governor Orji, which he knows that it will be difficult for him to achieve.

In that highlight, one observer had this to say: The various political parties should come out clean with their various programmes on how to build on that foundation and make the state one of the best. But instead of seeing such discourse, the factional APGA governorship candidate, Alex Otti and his camp… have continued to insult the sensibilities of Abians by making frivolous claims and propaganda that do not hold water or contribute to the uplifting of the political debate. For instance, how can anybody in his rightful senses claim that Governor Orji, who has provided a number of legacy structures that are visible everywhere, has not done anything?

It is pertinent to write that Otti is dead on arrival and his political coffin would be nailed in the 2015 general elections. He knows that he is not heading to anywhere; hence he resorts to throwing stones by saying that the PDP candidate in the state, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu was being sponsored by the state government. What Otti did not realize, according to a critic, is that Dr. Ikpeazu, as a bona fide citizen of Abia State, is free to contest any election of his choice, provided he is qualified to run in that election.

However, in the light of that, the Government of Abia State through the sociable Chief Press Secretary to Abia State Governor, Mr. Charles Ajunwa, had described the likes of Umeh and Otti as pathological liars and agents of destruction masquerading as politicians. The question that the governor had asked through Ajunwa is: “Where were Umeh and Otti when His Excellency Governor Theodore Orji through his inspiring doggedness restored sanity and peace in Aba in particular and Abia in general by ending kidnapping which completely brought all activities in the state to a standstill? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor Theodore Orji started and completed the hitherto impassable Aba/Owerri Road?”

The puzzle continued: “Where were Umeh and Otti when His Excellency started the de-silting of drains in Aba? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor T.A. Orji constructed the Uruakpa Road in Aba South? Where were they when Governor Orji started and completed the reconstruction of Ukwu Mango section of Faulks Road Aba (1.2km)? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor Orji started and completed the access road to Geometric Power Plant Aba? Where were they when Governor Orji restored the manhood of Abians? (To borrow the insightful words of Chief Ojo Maduekwe) Just to mention but a few.”

Ajunwa had seen that Otti and his co-travellers were economic with the truth about the government of his boss, because they were jealous of Governor Orji’s laudable and verifiable achievements, which put him ahead of other past leaders of the state. Ajunwa was of the opinion that Governor Orji’s remarkable achievements have won him uncountable awards and laurels from all parts of the world.

He described his boss as one leader who does not believe in propaganda as a tool for governance, rather he believes in hard work and selfless service to humanity. Therefore, it’s evident that Otti who aligns with Umeh to smear Governor Orji cannot be trusted, because as Nigerians knew, Umeh is a man that cannot be trusted, because he is gullible with power.

Umeh’s tenure as APGA’s chairman had expired since 5 years ago, yet Umeh clinched unto the leadership of the party for selfish reasons. This is a man that Otti has embraced. Like father, they say, like son. It then means that Otti can never be trusted.
 
Hart writes from Lagos