After 100 days in office as Abia governor, the Abia PDP is not disappointed that Alex Otti and the Labour Party are incapable of presenting a scorecard to Abians to showcase their achievements in office, howbeit, modest. We are not disappointed because it is typical and a pattern for Alex Otti to ignore conventions that strengthen the foundations of Abia’s democracy and resort to actions that weaken it.
The Abia PDP has read a hastily crafted ‘100 Days In Office’ press release pushed out to the public by Alex Otti’s Chief Press Secretary, Kazie Uko one day after an event that ought to be seminal and presented to Abians by the governor himself.
Regrettably, but reassuring to us that Alex Otti has nothing to offer, the speech was nothing more than true-to-type invectives on former governments and a litany of intentions bereft of concrete achievements and looks more like a campaign manifesto. Unfortunately, Alex Otti and his team have continuously failed to realise that best intentions do not produce the best outcomes except they are matched with realistic hands-on implementations.
The 100 days in office of any new government has become a threshold to assess how it has delivered on some key components of its manifesto to the electorate. It is also used as a basis to predict how far the government would go in the completion of the full content of the manifesto by the end of the administration. It was first used to herald the enormous productivity of American President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 during his 100 days in office. In Nigeria, it has also become a template used to measure executive office holders’ achievements in their first 100 days in office.
The new government of Alex Otti of the Labour Party was sworn in on May 29, 2023 and it is visible even to the blind that in his 100 days in office, there is nothing to cheer about because Abia, rather than make progress has actually retrogressed and continues to do so, offering no hope to Abians, across all sectors; economy, education, health, security, infrastructure, SME and others. In summary, Alex Otti can rightly be described as a bicycle repairer who was erroneously engaged to fix a recent model of a super automobile.
The Abia PDP has taken liberty to x-ray the 100 days of Alex Otti sector by sector to show Abians how badly he has fared in his responsibility to better the lot of Abians.
*POLITICS:* As a political father figure that he should be to all Abians, Alex Otti has failed to unite Abians and call everyone to be a part of the efforts required to build an Abia that all Abians would be proud of. Right in the podium where he took office, Alex Otti devoted 22 of his 46-paragraphed inaugural speech to attack the previous governments after he had rejected all overtures made by the preceding administration to offer a seamless transition to his government. He made it clear that he was not going to be a father figure to all Abians and started discriminating against some Abians on account of their political leanings and forgot completely that on oath, he had become the father of all Abians. He started his divisive brand of politics by saying that he would not touch anything used by the Ikpeazu administration and has made good that threat. That same divisive politics of Alex Otti was again on full display when he gave a broadcast on the 32nd anniversary of the creation of Abia State and left nobody in doubt that he harbours very deep seated animosity against anything that is not the Labour Party.
*SACKING OF ABIA CIVIL SERVANTS:* Within 24 hours that he assumed office, Alex Otti suspended all the Permanent Secretaries in the employ of the Abia State government and as at today, being his 100 days in office, those Permanent Secretaries remain suspended with no queries to ascertain any offences or wrongdoing and he has refused to pay them salaries as required by extant civil service rules for civil servants under suspension. Even more distressing is that he overturned civil service rules by placing subordinates above their superiors in a strange move that promises to destabilise the Abia Civil Service if the anomaly is allowed to stay.
In a swift and inconsiderate action, he boasted to have sacked about 7000 Abia workers and saved N200m from the payroll on the pretext that they were ghost workers without tracing the accounts that received those salaries and Abians are lost as to who these nameless ghost workers are.
Without recourse to civil service rules, Alex Otti surreptitiously sacked all medical doctors in Abia state but was made to reverse his steps when the Abia branch of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA cried out about the dangers of undertaking such an ill-advised step in the medical sector.
Just last week, Abians woke to the directive by Alex Otti to sack all Abia civil servants employed between January 2023 and May 29, 2023 and it has been sack galore since he assumed office. He probably thinks that he is getting back at PDP without knowing that he is dealing ruthlessly and undeservedly to Abians from all political divides. Who knows who’s next, and by the time he sacks all civil servants, he will face the private sector and start sacking since he takes delight in taking labour from the hands of people rather than creating jobs for the teeming Abia youths.
*LOCAL GOVERNMENT ADMINISTRATION:* After 100 days in office, the 17 Local Government Areas are run from the desk of Alex Otti and he does not find it imperative to appoint Local Government Caretaker Committees if he cannot conduct elections within 100 days of assumption of office. By law, the local government is a creation of the Nigerian Constitution and Alex Otti should not treat it as an arm of his office. All monies from the Joint Allocation Account Committee, JAAC, owned and run by the State and Local Governments are now run single handedly by Alex Otti. Abia PDP also has information that he is in possession of all the 17 seals used by the LGA’s to access funds from the Joint Account Allocation Committee, JAAC meaning that he is not only the governor, but also the Chairman of the 17 LGAs in Abia State. If this is not a constitutional aberration, Abia PDP wonders what it is.
*ECONOMY:* After 100 days in office, the first class economist does not have an economic blueprint or policy direction pointing to any formulations that are intended to scale the economic development and growth of Abia State. One had expected that by now, farmers, artisans, small and medium scale entrepreneurs and all sundry workers that contribute to the growth of the Abia GDP would have been warming up to embrace government financial empowerment, starter kits, training with modules that help them to start and, or sustain their businesses. By now, farmers should have been accessing fertilisers, seedlings and equipment that would guarantee optimal and bountiful yield during this farming season to give Abians food security in this dire and austere times. Alas, that is not what we see.
*N5B FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PALLIATIVES:* Last month, the federal government in a welcome effort to assuage the adverse effects of the fuel subsidy removal, doled out N5b, grains and bags of rice to States. As we write, Alex Otti has not told Abians how he intends to deploy the money to make life easier for Abians and what component of that money would be used as grants or loans to what sectors in Abia. Almost all the States except Abia have done that. When will Alex Otti do?
*ABA ECONOMIC BLUEPRINT:* The industrial potential of Aba, the cash cow of Abia’s Internally Generated Revenue, IGR has been left fallow. For all that it is worth, the Alex Otti administration has not unveiled any economic blueprint for Aba to continue from the successes recorded by the last administration. It was the ingenuity of Aba people that earned Abia the moniker of the SME Center of Nigeria. Recall that select Abians were taken to China and Europe to undertake artisanal and entrepreneurial training on some skill sets and were also equipped with monetary and physical facilities to start off. As we celebrate 100 days of Alex Otti, no word has been heard on how to expand the opportunities and increase the band of beneficiaries who will contribute to the growth of the State’s economy. All we hear is sack, sack, sack.
*TAXATION:* The only economic directive that has come out of the Alex Otti economic box is the widening of the tax net to bring in more taxable Abians, even when conditions necessary for economic growth that would warrant taxation are lacking. This is akin to putting the cart before the horse and anyone with an understanding of primary economics should know that taxation is tertiary and at the tip of the economic matrix while the deployment of infrastructure and ease of doing business belong to the primary and secondary. Why are you taxing Abians without first creating an environment where businesses would thrive? Whither Alex Otti’s economic sense.
*INFRASTRUCTURE:* While many States are delivering critical roads and other infrastructure within 100 days, only patches of roads within the Aba metropolis that do not measure up to 10 kilometres in all are receiving the loud noise from the government of Alex Otti. Sadly, those economic roads like the Port Harcourt and Ngwa roads in Aba that Alex Otti in his overzealousness as governor-elect made a public show of inspecting them have remained unattended to. Abians are now seeing that Alex Otti was merely playing to the gallery and suddenly that the almighty Julius Berger that was following and visiting him like a fly is no way to be seen. What Abians see now are grade C contractors whose roads are failing even before they are completed.
Regrettably, these road contracts were awarded without regard to due process and extant provisions of the laws of Abia State. Abians have not been told how much these roads cost, how they were pre-qualified, how the contractors bidded for those roads, because there were no advertisements made for them as required by law or which assembly of the people approved budgetary allocations for these jobs as they were made even before the Abia State House of Assembly was inaugurated.
*HEALTH:* In 100 days, only three General Hospitals are being rehabilitated even as they are yet to be completed and delivered to the needy public. It is surprising that a government that prides itself as a rescue government cannot deliver even one general hospital in 100 days.
*EDUCATION:* No new schools have been built nor old ones refurbished. No policy statement has been made regarding upscaling the education facilities in Abia. Teachers and lecturers in the State University, College of Education and the Polytechnic are still being owed salaries even as the ones they received amount to less than a quarter of their full salaries despite the humongous amount of money he has received in the past 100 days.
*TRANSPORTATION:* Alex has not said anything about giving Abia rail lines to ease transportation and workers difficulties, even as the railway was devolved to the States in the legislative list as a parting gift by the APC government of President Muhammadu Buhari. The only information available is that he will devote N2b to transportation but remained mute on which sectors of the industry would get what and what.
*INSECURITY:* Insecurity is back in full swing and the lives of Abians are more endangered in just three months under Alex Otti’s watch than it was eight years ago. Abians now live in fear and instead of taking steps to push back the rampaging onslaught of criminality, he is taking steps to further create conditions that would exacerbate insecurity by engaging in the inconsiderate sacking of workers, most of whom are their families breadwinners. We can only imagine what will happen in the next few months as about 9000 workers have been pushed into the labour market by Alex Otti.
Within 100 days, two policemen died in the line of duty by escorting a Commissioner with a convoy and security patrol. This is the first time it is happening in Abia in the past 24 years and unfortunately, the governor’s convoy has been involved in two avoidable road accidents that left Abians hospitalised. This speaks to the recklessness of his convoys and drivers who are under the false impression that they are untouchables that are driving an emperor.
*SALARIES:* In the past eight years, Alex Otti created a huge industry of critics from the purported non-payment of salaries to pensioners and workers in agencies and government parastatals that are supposed to be self-sustaining. Three months into office, the same Alex Otti has advised those agencies and parastatals to look for ways to generate income and pay their salaries while pensions have not been paid as promised. What an irony of hypocrisy?
Last week, the Abia State Accountant General, Mrs. Njum Onyemenam was locked out of office and chased by angry and hungry workers who had barricaded the entrance to her office while protesting the non-payment of salaries and one wonders if this is happening in Abia under the watch of “wonder-boy” Alex Otti?
*CONCLUSION:* It is apparent to every discerning Abian that the 100 days of Alex Otti has been 100 days of poor performance, incompetence, trial and error and above all, the inconsistency of a self-styled emperor who is h*ll bent on diminishing the values and worth of our hard earned democracy by taking to authoritarian inclinations in almost all his policies. In summary, Alex Otti made a false start by putting the wrong foot forward and it is clear that once a sprinter makes a false start in a 100 metre race, which governance is, the person never makes a good end.
*PPDP – Power to the People!*
Signed
*Hon. Elder Abraham Amah*
*Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting Stat e Publicity Secretary*
