Practice What You Preached When In Opposition During The 2015, 2019 & 2023 Campaigns:  An Open Letter To Governor Alex Otti – By Mazi Eric Ikwuagwu

Practice What You Preached When In Opposition During The 2015, 2019 & 2023 Campaigns:  An Open Letter To Governor Alex Otti – By Mazi Eric Ikwuagwu

OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR ALEX

Sir, practice what you preached when in opposition during the 2015, 2019 and 2023 campaigns.

It has become important to beg you, sir, to show some empathy and compassion to Abians, at least as a way of thanking God, who finally made it possible for you to become governor after two disastrous attempts.

One had expected you to be more grateful to God as governor and perform optimally, rather than pursue the type of system you operate by using the media to create an illusion of Eldorado, whereas the state is underperforming given the four folds increase in revenue. Indeed, Abia is in dire need of better governance structure

Sometimes sir, I wonder how you manage to sleep at night with the weight of so many untrue things you have said in the media. The other time, during your media chat, you claimed that no Abia pensioner is owed a dime and that you had cleared their 9-year arrears, but till date, the pensioners keep praying, dying and weeping for their entitlements to be paid to them. At an economic summit in faraway Lagos, you also claimed that Aba now has 24/7 power, which you know was not a very correct statement to make honestly.

The Aba independent power project isn’t an achievement by your administration but previous administrations and the company, a private entity, has often complained about gas supply which often is in short supply causing power outages, therefore the 24/7 power isn’t entirely true. More work needs to be done.

You challenged the Ikpeazu administration to good governance and prescribed what you would never do as governor, which included taking security votes, appointing transition chairmen to man the local government councils, ensuring direct allocation and financial independence/autonomy for the local governments, and conducting free and fair local government elections. The list is endless, and in all these, you have walked back on your promises. You knew how to quote the Bible to buttress your points while in opposition; do the Bible verses no longer matter to you now that you are in power?

You promised to clear pension arrears by December 2023, even when you never knew that the subsidy would be removed and your allocations would be quadrupled. You were unexpectedly blessed with the subsidy windfall, and more than 3 years later, you are yet to clear the arrears, even as poorer states have all cleared theirs.

Recall that in 2018, when the National minimum wage was N30K, you said Abia was rich enough to pay N50K and that the then government in power wasn’t frugal enough. Today, sir, more than 8 years later, and with a worsening economy, more money coming to your government, and a national minimum wage of N70K, surprisingly, you pay less than N40K when actually calculated for senior civil servants.

Do you know that Abia pays the lowest salaries in the South-East and perhaps the entire country? Did you know that Imo State pays N104K? Did you know that almost all the states have cleared their backlog of pensions because of the huge revenue that accrues to subnational governments under President Tinubu?

Sir, you condemned the sacking of workers in its entirety, but under you, over 15K workers lost their jobs in one clean sweep. More civil servants, mostly the senior cadre have lost their jobs under you than at any other time in history.

You preached better workers welfare, but now that you are governor, what happened? Promotions are without pay rises, and leave allowances remain unpaid.

I can still vividly recall how you urged the State House of Assembly to be alive to its oversight function to check the excesses of the former administration. So, what is happening to the Assembly under you? How are they overseeing you?

Sir, have you forgotten you preached “velocity of money”, loosely explained to be the frequency at which money exchanges hands? Under you, sir, there is no money in circulation, not to talk about exchanging hands. Let me also remind you that under you, Abia no longer sleeps by 7 PM, but sleeps perpetually.

While you pay the least salary in the entire South-East, your administration makes more deductions from the meagre salaries of Abia workers and the hike in taxation on struggling businesses is seriously unreasonable. How do you expect a farmer to part with N1.6 million for his personal income tax certificate? Let me not even talk about land title registration and other related processes that have been hiked unreasonably too high.

Landlords pay higher ground rents and therefore transfer the same to their tenants, causing the shocking rent increase in the state. House agents are not part of why Abians are relocating to their villages.

As opposition, You often bragged about investors rushing to Abia once you became governor. Sir, let me remind you that it has been more than 3 years; rather than a rush of investors to Abia, businesses are closing down.

You complained about job creation under Ikpeazu’s administration and even mocked the entrant of Domino Pizza which was celebrated by that government as an indication that Abia was conducive for business. Under you sir, not even “Domino groundnut” has entered the state.

You preached private sector employment as panacea to youth unemployment but today, despite the huge Abia unemployment of 18.7%, you have only recruited teachers, whose minimum wage isn’t taking them home. Most of them remain unpaid months after recruitment. What happened to the private sector employments?

Sir, you preached frugality. How frugal is it to have spent a whooping total of N112 billion on mere renovation of public schools, which are nowhere to be seen and a single quarterly payment of N54 billion on 51 smart schools, which could be found in the Q4 Budget Performance Report of 2024? Where are the schools, sir? Did you know that a frugal governor built over 200 brand new units of big, integrated, mega-green smart schools across the wards of his state with less than half of what you claim to have used on mere renovation of public schools?

On roads, the state has claimed to have spent over N300 billion (according to the available figures in the budget performance reports from Q3 of 2023 to date) on the rehabilitation of 414 roads. You argued, as opposition, that it was fraudulent not to measure roads by length but by names, as short roads of less than 50 metres would be counted in the tally. Now that you are governor, you have resorted to mentioning the names of roads instead of the length in kilometres you once preached.

As opposition, You were high on standard quality roads, but as you pass through your merely rehabilitated roads just under one intense rainfall, over 90% of these roads are beginning to wash off.

Sir, you promised to fight corruption. Where is it that, in your Budget Performance Reports, which show actual funds received and expenditure made, there are multiple subheadings under which huge amounts were claimed without any identifiable physical locations in Abia, such as the N6.5 billion for recreational facilities and others? Sir, let me add that you were not truthful when you claimed that Budget Performance Reports are merely estimates.

While there is a general improvement in security in the South-East, in Abia, there are still serious crimes like car theft and other vices on the rise. Fighting crime must include improving the welfare of the people.

Sir, you declared during your inaugural speech at Umuahia Stadium that “Abians will no longer need the media to tell them about what government is doing…” So, what is happening now that you are governor? It is even more now, under your administration that the media and elites are imported into Abia to tell the people what is NOT even happening in the state. Other governors used media to tell Abians what was on ground, today what is not on ground is exaggerated and in most times outright propaganda.

Sir, you know that if you were frugal in the management of Abia’s resources, the state would have experienced what other states are enjoying because of the increased allocations that now come in.

Yours faithfully,
Mazi Eric Ikwuagwu.
11/08/2026. No