From Okey Sampson, Umuahia
Abia State Governorship candidate of Labour Party (LP), Dr. Alex Otti has given reason why he left his former party, the All Progressives Congress and joined LP to contest the governorship election in 2023.
Speaking during an interactive session with some journalists at his country home, Umuru Nvosi, in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State, the former bank executive said he left APC when he discovered the Governorship ticket of the party was zoned to one person.
“I left APC because they were not in the mood to conduct primaries. A document was leaked where they zoned the governorship to one person”.
Otti regretted that Abia has not been particularly fortunate in terms of leadership of the state for sometime now, a trend he said he would change if he becomes the governor of the state.
“I will like to work hard to rebuild Abia State if elected governor, to a place where we all can say we are proud we are Abians.
“We will tackle Abia’s problems one after the other, starting with industrialization. We will do everything possible to support well managed companies, by so doing, we would have created jobs and by creating jobs, we would have dealt with insecurity”.
Otti bemoaned the debt profile of the state, saying presently, the figure was not known.
He said there was nothing wrong in securing loans, but that they should be used expeditiously and transparently for the good of the people.
Giving reason on why he stopped a loan that Abia State Government could have secured from the African Development Bank, Otti said, “I stopped the loan because they falsified documents and they didn’t go through the State House of Assembly as stipulated by law.
“Again, they have not accounted for the previous ones they collected and there was no way we could have kept quiet. In fact, I was supposed to have been applauded, instead of the other way around.
“We will restructure the payment modules of some of these loans as not to be stumbling block for the state”.
The LP governorship candidate informed that if he wins the election, he would create the Ministry of Aba, hinging his reason on the fact that if everything about the city is gotten right, Abia State as a whole will be in the right frame for economic development.
While assuring his administration would subsidize agriculture to ensure food security and create jobs, Otti promised to cut down cost of governance if he becomes the governor of the state.