Tag: Alex Otti

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the 2015 General Election, Dr. Alex Otti in an interview with selected journalists at the end of a civic reception organised for him at Nvosi in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government of the state by Abia First, Umunneato (Isiala Ngwa North and South and Osisioma local government areas) spoke on various issues including the rumoured defection from APGA to All Progressives Congress (APC) and lessons learnt from the 2015 elections. Sunny Nwankwo was there. Excerpts

WHAT is your take over the rumour about your imminent defection from APGA to All Progressives Congress?

I am in a vehicle that does not have a problem; you don’t change a winning team.

What if your people want you to join APC, which is the ruling party at the center?

When they suggest, we will listen to them because I operate with superior logic. If you defeat me in an argument, I will yield to you, I don’t have a problem with that, but for now, I don’t see that argument.

You left a plum banking job for politics and so far you are still here, do you have any regrets?

Far from it, I have no regrets at all. It was a deliberate decision that I took and before I take a decision, I weigh all the options and as I was taking that decision, one of the option is what is happening now. So, I am not surprised, there is nothing to regret.

Are you contesting for governorship in 2019?

2019 is not here yet, since you are from Abia State, if you want me to run, you can come and tell me.

What informed your movement to APGA in the first place during the last election?

Well, I have answered that question several times, but I will answer it again. It was because of the reason that made PDP to lose power at the center in 2015. PDP refused to obey the tenets of democracy.

Basically, when you have a lot of people who wants to contest for a seat, you don’t go and arrange the place in such a way that one person will dictate what happens; when I saw that that was what was happening, I left the party even before the primary and I warned the rest of the people that were there that this was what was going to happen and at the end of the day, I turned out to be right.

Some of them thought they could stay and fight, but everything had been arranged in such a way that a particular outcome is expected, so it is going to be a miracle if the expected outcome does not happen.

Are you satisfied with the court process; from the tribunal to the Supreme Court?

I think a lot has been said about the judiciary; if you followed the incidence that happened at the lower tribunal, I lost there. I won at the Appeal Court and then at the Supreme Court, I lost. Now the issue is not whether I lost or not, the issue is if justice was served.

I did organise a press conference and also a thanksgiving service where I made it clear that I disagreed with the decision of the Supreme Court, but I had to accept their judgment as a responsible citizen because they are the highest court of the land.

But what they did was judicial murder when they said the only way to prove over voting is by the voters’ register. I disagree and I still disagree till tomorrow, because the question they have not been able to answer is if on election day, your name is in the voters’ register and for some reason you had too much alcohol on Friday night, you had a hangover that made you not wake up until the election was over, so you didn’t show up at the polling unit, what the Supreme Court is saying is that once your name is there in the register it is deemed that you have voted or you voted.

But we presented a superior argument, even at the lower tribunal up to the Supreme Court. We had a print out that showed everybody that came to vote on that day, whether you voted or did not vote, if you showed up at the polling unit with your permanent voters’ card and the card reader read your card we have all that information.

The print out we had showed everybody, in Obingwa where they had 82,000 for PDP and 1000 for me which was written in the Government House anyway, we showed that they were only 30,000 people that showed up to vote, whether they voted or not, in Osisioma Ngwa where they wrote 44,000 for themselves and 1000 for me, our print out showed they were only 18,000 people that showed up to vote and when you check the patterns of voting even during the presidential election it was the same.

They are no 80,000 persons in Obingwa even up to tomorrow, everybody knew they were written, that was why the returning officer cancelled those local governments before the then governor stormed and criminally harassed the returning officer to reverse the cancellation.

So when you look at these and somebody tells me that because what they wrote is not more than the number of people in the register, then I think something is wrong with that logic.

One of my supporters from Obingwa came out on Channels TV to say that both his father and mother registered, but during 2015 election both were gone, they were dead, but according to Supreme Court, those people you can write their votes, so you use the people that are alive and people that were dead.  It is over now and I have taken it and we have moved on.

Now the latest Supreme Court judgment does not have much to do with us except that we asked for our right to be heard and the Supreme Court on January 27th agreed that we should be heard, but the same Supreme Court refused to hear us and gave judgment. I had written them to say you are giving me with one hand and collecting with the other hand

What lesson have you leant from the entire process so far?

A lot of lessons, if I start talking about the lessons maybe you will dedicate one edition of your newspaper to that, but then one of the major ones is that people are never consistent, so don’t bet on people.

The person that shows up in your house now can show up in the house of your opponent in the evening, we had such cases of people who were ostensibly with us but worked for the opposition, but it is fine, we have also leant that lesson and so many other lessons.

In politics, it is not every lesson that you learn that you use, politics is the only institution where you know somebody is telling you lies and you still give money. They will come and tell you all sorts of lies and you still say okay take, I don’t know any other place where that kind of thing happens.

Where I am coming from, I will tell you to get out, but in politics, you will not want to tell him that, but you know what he is doing.

Another lesson which I leant and I am going to implement is for all of us to work towards the sanitisation of the electoral process, because there are a whole lot that is not well with the process. People will come out to vote and somebody will go somewhere and change it, it should not happen again. Those are some of the lessons I can share for now.

What is your assessment of the present government, have they improved on what made you join politics?

If you live in Abia State you don’t need me to say anything; I don’t need to say anything, salaries are being owed for several months, we came in through Umuahia today and the city is as dirty as anything, heaps of rubbish all over the place in a state capital. There is nothing that has changed, Aba is the same.

Recently, there was a judgment from a High Court in Enugu that purportedly removed APGA National Chairman, Oye; what is your take on that?

Well, it is a judgment that came as a surprise, even though we knew they were things like that going on, but we are not worried because again this is democracy. If somebody went to court and secured judgment, what to do is not to worry, what to do is to go and appeal, I am sure our people (APGA, Oye faction) are preparing to appeal. We also know that they are a couple of other matters pending in several courts, again that is democracy.

One, out of APGA’s nine House of Assembly members showed up at this reception today, what happened?

It was not only one that showed up, they were about four of them that came, but it is only one that spoke. I saw Hon. Abraham Oba, Chijioke Nwachukwu, Lukeman Ukara, I think they were about four of them, but the rest of them may have one thing or the other that kept them away, but I know one of them is not in the country. I don’t have a problem with that.

After the election, one would expect APGA to engage the incumbent administration constructively over its perceived anti-people’s policies, but that hasn’t happened. What is your take?

That is a good question, but I am not in the best place to answer that question; I am not in the House of Assembly, but I will make an attempt. If you listened to Hon. Luke Ukara, he has said and I know that they have been under reported because they have been criticizing government and going against positions that were against the interest of the people, that’s what he said.

I am aware that at some point, a member of the House of Assembly was suspended because he went against government; I am also aware that they are a lot of impunity in the system and it takes courageous people to stand up. Courageous people like you, because I can come out and criticize, not everybody has the guts to do that.

As far as we are concerned as a party, we have made it clear that we are an opposition to the government. You would have heard me from time to time, read some of the things that I wrote, including the ones that I said today and that is the position of the party. It doesn’t matter what one person goes to the House of Assembly to do, if he goes and does something different he is on his own.

Before the 2015 election, you and the former governor had a robust relationship, how is the relationship today?

When you say a robust relationship, it depends on what you mean. He was the governor of the state at that time and I was a bank CEO. First and foremost, the state used Diamond Bank as one of its banks and off course I knew him, but our relationship became a bit estranged when I wanted to contest election.

He did not tell me not to contest, but I also saw he was not comfortable with it, but it was not his business to determine who was going to succeed him and I am not the kind of person that will go kowtowing to people, so I made it clear that I wanted to contest and when I saw that he did everything possible to ensure he manipulated the primaries against everybody else that wanted to contest, except his anointed candidate, I just quietly took a walk and the next thing was that he started attacking me and that is okay.

I wouldn’t say I am fighting with him and I also wouldn’t say I have a close relationship with him, but he is a former governor of the state and we must accord him the respect that that office he sat on deserves, but as a former state governor, you and I know that he performed so poorly and I have not wasted any effort in saying so. Even when I had a relationship with him, I used to share ideas with him, but you know, you can’t give what you don’t have.

The incumbent governor said he has extended hands of fellowship to you; are you aware?

I have also extended hand of fellowship to him.

If the governor (Ikpeazu) asks you to come and assist the state in one way or the other, will you do so?

When that happens, we will evaluate it based on its merits.

As the last day in the month of December 2015 was burning out feverishly, the Justices of the Appeal Court sitting in Owerri, capital of Imo State, engraved its name in diamond letters when it ruled that Dr. Alex Otti, the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate, was indeed the winner of the election conducted last year in Abia State.

Delivering her judgment, the Presiding Judge, Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, was emphatic when she orders the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to swear-in Dr Alex Otti immediately as governor.

Said Justice Omoleye,” After subtracting the votes from Isiala Ngwa, Osisioma and Obingwa, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate is left with a total votes of 114,444, while APGA candidate has 164,332 votes and should be returned as the rightful winner of the election,” the Appellate Court Justice said in the crowded court.

She maintained that the “court decided to cancel the election in three council areas as a result of anomalies and subsequently, the judgment of the tribunal which upheld the election of the PDP candidate , is hereby set aside”.

The entire length and breadth of the state erupted in an ecstasy of unstoppable joy with streets from Owerri to Umuahia and emptying into Aba, the popular Enyimba City, lined up with enthusiastic Abians from all persuasions dancing and drumming in support of a popular mandate taken away but now restored.

It therefore beats one’s imagination to see rented crowds and charlatans, surrogates and hangers on disturbing the peace of Abians, criticising a most obvious charter of truth.

It was indisputable who won that election. Political watchers and pundits were not oblivious to the alleged massive rigging, gangsterism, opprobrium  and public assault orchestrated by the PDP pre and post election to cow APGA, Abians in general and of course the man of the moment, Dr Otti, who had convincingly trounced Dr Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP at that governorship polls last year.

Walk the streets of any of the eastern states – Imo, Enugu, Anambra, Ebonyi and Abia, the subject of discourse after that election, unmistakably centerd on the alleged rape of justice and overt robbery of electoral victory of APGA and its flag bearer, Dr Otti.

With the quantum of fraud allegedly perpetrated by INEC and security agencies, who were hand-in- gloves with the then ruling government of PDP, this monumental judgement of the Appellate Court, could not have been any less different.

The court wants to right the wrong and of course, it did just the right thing no caring whose ox is gored.

Incredibly outpouring of joy with the conventional ‘V’ victory sign renting the air and dotting all over Abia State, it becomes imperative that politicians must learn to abide by the rules, since the just will always be vindicated no matter the illusory and pyrrhic victory.

An astute banker and the immediate former Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank, the entry of Otti in the political firmament of Abia State was greeted with plausible excitement by the electorate, who undoubtedly needed no soothsayer to tell them that the track record of Dr Otti was all they were waiting for all these years to clear the Augean stable so messed up that Aba, amongst other cities, still wallow in crates, gullies of roads, to name but a few of the heartless neglect by these shameless  rulers.

Of course there were trepidation at the camps of the opposition even some of Dr Otti’s party members, aware of Otti’s impeccable credentials and pedigree. He was maligned, harassed, threatened and there were reports of alleged assassination attempts, but none could stop the Hand of God. Resolute as ever, Abians stood behind the banker-turned politician. Not even the many fetish idolatry displays of coffins on some major streets of Aba City, allegedly invoking the spirit of instant death on anyone that voted for APGA and its gubernatorial candidate, could save the day.

Abians were undeterred even when a mysterious inferno had ripped through an INEC office in one of the local council offices, allegedly destroying INEC electoral materials aimed at putting Dr Otti at a disadvantage.

Otti’s political manifestos, focus and direction are gladly in tandem with those of the new APGA National Chairman, Dr Victor Oye, who since taking over the mantle of leadership of the party, had begun an aggressive and sustained rebuilding of the beleaguered party..

The new face APGA inspires hope for the future and would soonest be the Eldorado and cynosure of all eyes. Young, energetic, dynamic, Oye epitomizes an alluring strong base of background of political savvy, a man of great intellect, intuition, a peoples’ man, amiable, down to earth, humble to a fault dining with the hoipoli.

A politician with several years of meritorious service at all rungs of political party and administrative mechanisms of State Governments, we shall henceforth begin to visualize a trail blazer as he repositions APGA in readiness in time for the 2019 General Elections.

As a foremost experienced journalist, writer vivid commentator and author, Dr Oye could not have had a better serenade and an icing on his New Year Cake. With an additional state in APGA’s kitty and control, there is no gain-saying the trio Oye, Governor Willy Obiano and Dr Alex Otti, would change the face of Nigerian politics.

If Otti did it at Diamond Bank, he would doubly fix Abia State and perfect the peoples’ expectations at Umuahia Government House.

For a long time to come, the reverberation of this epic Judgment of the Appellate Court would continue to be felt at all the nooks and crannies of Abia State, other states east of the Niger and in Nigeria in general.

It remains a definite and defining statement of the beauty of the rule of law.

• Dr. Mbibi wrote in from Umuahia, Abia State