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Otti laments huge debts in Abia 

The Labour Party governorship candidate, Dr Alex Chioma Otti, has been sworn in as he 5th executive governor of Abia state while lamenting that he inherited over N200 billion debts with 50 billion meant for salaries, gratuity,and pension arrears.

Dr Alex Otti disclosed this in Umuahia Township stadium shortly after his inauguration as the next governor of Abia state by the Chief Judge of Abia state, Justice Lilian Abai.

He however pointed out that they were busy battling with the devastating effects of insincere and corrupt leadership, the rest of the world, and even many parts of Nigeria, would appear to have left Abia behind. 

“We have a treasury that has been criminally ravaged to the extent that we have an alleged N50 billion in unpaid salaries, gratuities, and pensions. Our local and foreign debt overhang is reported to be in the region of N200 billion, in addition to other debts to contractors. 

‘We have a poorly motivated workforce, extreme youth unemployment, collapsed physical infrastructure, a terribly frail primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare delivery system.” 

The ex-banker boss turned Politician added that these are in addition to a broken educational system, urban waste disposal crisis and a large army of citizens, especially teachers, health workers, including medical doctors and nurses, lecturers in tertiary institutions, Local Government Authority workers and most painfully, our senior citizens, who feel blatantly betrayed by successive administrations that wilfully and unconscionably abandoned them to live in wretched sub-human conditions. 

The Abia newly sworn in governor 

lauded the INEC, “especially, those her officers, who stood firm to their conviction during the elections, to make our votes count. We must not take for granted the sacrifice that these INEC staff made for us to be here today in this capacity. 

“I must not forget the sacrifices made by members of my immediate and extended families, who stood firmly by me all these years and gave me all the support and sustenance needed to survive this gruelling electioneering campaign that lasted the better part of eight years.

“I must thank particularly my dear wife, Priscilla, who has remained my untiring pillar of support and who has pledged to continue to be my inner strength as we embark on this new journey and my children alike. 

“Today, I stand before you, my good people of Abia state, to declare once again, boldly, that in line with my campaign theme, you should ‘weep no more, help is here’. My task is to dry your tears and help you. 

“As we get ready to cross River Jordan into the Canaan land that God has graciously placed before us, let us not be under any illusion that the worst is over. In fact, in winning the election, we have merely won a preliminary battle, albeit a very crucial one. Nevertheless, the war has just begun, and we have put our hands on the plough. 

“There is no turning back until we achieve our collective dreams and aspirations.  From the events of the last few months since after our victory, there are clear indications that there will be constant distractions from those who pray that Abia state state should go back to Egypt. Some of them have been active of late, throwing all manner of spanners in our wheel to derail our train of progress and development. 

“They would prefer to be rulers in the kingdom of hell and darkness than to serve with heavenly angels. But I have news for them. Someone should go and tell them that we have decisively broken free from our bondage. We are finally heading to our Promised Land, and we have resolved that we will no longer serve Pharaoh!”

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