Abia State All Progressives Congress stakeholders have firmly ruled out the possibility of accepting Governor Alex Otti into the party, declaring such a move would jeopardize their efforts to secure power in the 2027 elections.
The group, operating under the banner of Abia’s Best Interest Association, made their position clear during a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday.
The association’s convener, Eze Chikamnayo, accused Otti of publicly claiming allegiance to President Bola Tinubu while allegedly undermining the federal government’s initiatives in Abia.
“He wants people to believe that he supports the president but at the same time we know that in Abia state he is undermining Mr. President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” Chikamnayo stated.
The stakeholders highlighted financial discrepancies, claiming that despite over N300 billion in federal allocations reaching Abia’s local governments through Tinubu’s reforms, the councils remain dysfunctional.
“As we speak over N300 billion has come from President Tinubu’s reforms into Abia state local government and all the local governments are grounded, castrated and completely insolvent,” Chikamnayo said.
The group leader was particularly critical of the state’s education sector, questioning the utilization of N54 billion budgeted for school renovations in 2024. “We wish to express shock that the state government included ‘recruitment of teachers, buying chalks our teaching aids’ among the items for which the N54 billion was supposedly spent. When did employing teachers and purchasing instructional materials become capital projects?” he asked.
Comparing Abia’s development to neighboring states, Chikamnayo noted: “The allocations and various intervention funds coming to Abia from the federal government have tripled since the inception of the Tinubu’s administration but there was still nothing tangible to show in the education sector in the state compared to the situation in Imo and Enugu.”
The association called for greater public scrutiny of the Otti administration’s expenditures. “We call on Abians to be vigilant, ask questions, and demand full accountability and transparency from the Alex Otti-led administration. The future of our children is at stake, and no government should be allowed to mortgage it under the guise of inflated or questionable expenditure,” Chikamnayo emphasized.
Concluding their stance on Otti’s speculated defection, the APC stakeholders declared: “We will not receive such a liability into APC. That is what we are saying. Nobody in APC Abia state wants anything called Alex Otti. He is a liability.”
