2027: Abia APC Will Not Receive Otti – Stakeholders

Abia State All Progressives Congress (APC’s) stakeholders have foreclosed the possibility of Governor Alex Otti joining the party as he will not be received into its folds.

The stakeholders under the auspices of Abian’ Best Interest Association, said accepting Otti into APC ahead of the 2027 general election will be risky for the party which is working towards taking over the reins of powers in the state.

The convener, Abia’s Best Interest Association, Eze Chikamnayo, who stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, said while the governor claimed to be supporting President Bola Tinubu, the reverse was the case as he is undermining the Nigerian leader in the state.

“He(Otti) wants people to believe that he supports the president but the same time we know that in Abia state he is undermining Mr President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“As we speak over N300 billion has come from President Tinubu reforms into Abia state local government and all the local governments are grounded, castrated and completely insolvent.

“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….,”Chikamnayo said.

The group’s leader also decried what he described as the deplorable state of infrastructure in some schools despite the much-publicised N54 billion which appeared in the Abia state budget performance report for the renovation and retrofitting of public schools for the year 2024.

He said the allocations and various intervention funds coming to Abia from the federal government, have tripled since the inception of theTinubu’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.

“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?

“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 added.