The government of Abia State led by Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has described the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) at the last general election in the state, Alex Otti, as a liar and a deceiver that destroys everything he touches.
Otti had in an earlier statement said that the government of Ikpeazu had ‘weaponized’ hunger in the state.
He had told the citizens of the state that their continued support for Ikpeazu and his government would only lead them and their children’s future to doom.
But responding in a statement through the state commissioner for information, Chief John Okiyi Kalu, on Tuesday, Ikpeazu’s government said Otti’s statement was only meant to deceive gullible Abia people and to portray the governor as a non-performing leader.
“Otti started his political journey with attempts aimed at deceiving and misrepresenting the actual place of his origin by abandoning his multi-million Naira personal country home in Arochukwu where he lived to relocate to Isiala Ngwa when he learned that the 2015 Governor of Abia State would emerge from Ngwa area of Abia State, in line with Abia Charter of Equity, and since then he has perfected the art of lying, deceit and destruction of whatever he touches.
“Otti launched his campaign at Aba by lying to the people that he, as a private citizen, obtained a loan of $100bn from International Finance Corporation (IFC) to rebuild Aba even when, as a former banker, he must have known that individuals cannot obtain loans on behalf of a state government. Since then he has not accounted for the money even after he claimed that he only borrowed $100m as against $100b. That was only the beginning of the putrid litany of lies, deceit and sheer mischief that characterized Otti’s dead on arrival attempt to appropriate the Governorship seat by all means.
“Without consideration for the progress and well-being of Abians, Otti ill-advisedly chose to challenge the re-election of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu in court to principally remain relevant in Abia politics, distract the governor from performing his duties and indeed punish the people of Abia State for refusing to elect him their governor.
“The latest attempt to lie and deceive by Otti is aptly captured in his latest press statement that “Ikpeazu-led government has weaponized hunger in Abia”, wherein he lied, as usual, that the Governor hired a crowd of supporters to attend the tribunal adoption hearing on Thursday September 29, 2019, who abused him for desperately seeking to be Abia governor.
“I have it on good authority that Otti also sponsored renegade pensioners and protest-for-cash urchins to mount a failed protest on the day of the tribunal sitting in order to embarrass the governor in the media and score cheap political point that surely won’t have any bearing to the ruling of the tribunal which is expected to be based on law and evidence adduced by the parties in the matter.
“It is a fact that the members and leaders of the Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP), Abia State chapter, are currently discussing with the government on how to clear their outstanding wages, some of which obviously did not emanate from this administration,” the statement read in part.
