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Otti’s govt, now a confused bunch – PDP *Says things falling apart
Unless the Abia State Government ends the gale of unrestrained sacking of top officials trained at huge costs to the state, and recalls those already shooed out, so long would it descend more into the morass of confusion, such as it has currently found itself, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has warned.
The main opposition in the state which lost power to the Labour Party (LP), after 24 years in the saddle, accused the government of Alex Otti, of incessant sacking of the good hands it met on ground, said this has resulted in a state of flux, accentuated by bad policies and inexperience of those it has recruited to work with.
Abraham Amah, Vice Chairman of the Abia chapter, of the party, while noting that the government had been groping in the dark and running in confusion like headless chicken, said this has accounted for its frenzied activities as seen in the further sacking of its appointees in the past two weeks, adding that running helter-skelter to redeem itself would come to naught without doing the right thing.
The party, which claimed to have burst the pipe of propaganda, the government had since embraced as its major working tool, maintained that its well-oiled media machinery, would not relent in puncturing all the lies being fed to the people of the state by painting the right picture of the state of affairs.
Citing the sacking of Kazie Uko, Chief Press Secretary to the Governor and Ngozi Okoronkwo, the Commissioner for Health, the party said, the government had introduced an air of uncertainty into its operations as nobody, was now no longer sure where and on whom the axe would fall next.
Informing that the PDP had it on good authority that many of the commissioners and other aides of the governor, were now considering throwing in the towel rather than being disgraced out of office were the fate of their former colleagues, Amah, who is also the spokesman of the PDP, said: “A fortnight ago, Alex Otti suspended the Commissioner for Health, Ngozi Okoronkwo, on allegations of massive corruption in the Ministry and placed her under investigation.
“When the PDP released a statement claiming the suspension was more than meets the eye, as she was not the only one that has exhibited many excesses in the Alex Otti team, his Commissioner for Information, Okey Kanu, overreached himself and bared open the mindset of Alex Otti and his methods to the public when he started their usual PDP-bashing press statement with a quote by the infamous Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s chief propagandist who helped Hitler to slaughter over six million Jews.
“The condemnations from well-meaning Nigerians that trailed Okey Kanu’s infamous quote are yet to settle, and Abians now know the copybook of Alex Otti and his operatives and the reason why he has been dealing ruthlessly with Abians, particularly the state finances, pensioners, sacked workers, and unpaid workers, in Hitler-style methods that brought the Third Reich to an inglorious end.
“Last week, Alex Otti sacked his Chief Press Secretary, Kazie Uko, and replaced him with one Ukoha Njoku Ukoha. We had expected that Ukoha N. Ukoha would understand that his duty is to tell Abians and Nigerians how his principal has delivered on his campaign promises and showcase his good works, if there are any, beyond re-asphalting roads done by the previous administration.”
Amah, while describing as unfortunate the hurry of Ukoha to please his boss, instead of heeding good advice, noted that this had led him to make the same error of his predecessor as could be gleaned in “his first misstep in his first outing by continuing with the deja vu bashing of the PDP, which earned his principal the bad reputation he was called to come and clean up.
“Our sympathy lies with the new CPS Ukoha because his fall would be more calamitous than that of his predecessor since he has failed to learn that his job is not to profile the PDP wrongly. As the fire in the Alex Otti media and propaganda team raged, the axe fell on Mrs Joy Maduka, former Head of Service, whom Alex Otti bypassed due process and promoted ahead of her superiors, as she was summarily dismissed and asked to proceed on compulsory retirement.
“Having sacked all the senior directors and permanent secretaries who were trained with state resources prematurely and out of an alleged insensitive hatred for the PDP, Otti is currently allegedly grappling with a shortage of trained manpower with whom to govern without the daily missteps that put him and his government into ridicule.
“It was the same confusion and lack of direction that caused the governor’s Chief Security Officer, CSO, to summon civil servants who had not been verified to his office, in utter defiance of Abia State Civil Rule, CS Rule 04102, which empowers only the Civil Service Commission to exercise disciplinary control over Abia civil servants. Such autocratic disposition reflects the character of the governor, which his Information Commissioner and Chief Press Secretary unknowingly pushed out to the public by endorsing the Joseph Goebbels quote time after time, even when they knew Abians would not accept such infamy.
“Presently, Alex Otti’s house is falling apart, and we advise him to come down from his high horse, swallow his pride, and recall those he sacked ignominiously so that they will help him in the good governance and administration of Abia State before the roof finally collapses on his head. The people he sacked were not Okezie Ikpeazu loyalists, not PDP members, but Abia civil servants, who ordinarily must be loyal to any government in power, as they are loyal to him now. No time is too late to do the right thing.”
Peter Obi, candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), has given assignment to Nigerians to put all those aspiring to take up political positions in the country through the grill to ascertain their level of integrity, saying it was required as a sine qua non for the job they seek.
Obi, who has been a subject of discussion in the polity since the allegation of corruption was levied against him by Kenneth Okonkwo, spokesman of his campaign in 2023, over the conduct of the party’s primaries to choose candidates for the 2027 general elections, said the grilling must start with his own person.
A guest in an interview on a podcast with Rufai Oseni, a popular television anchor, the former Governor of Anambra State, stated that it was actually for this reason that he had now sworn to see the litigation he instituted against Okonkwo through.
His take is that the Nollywood actor should use the courtrooms to give all the details of bad behaviour, following his threat to expose him fully, after alleging that he was collecting money from aspirants in the said election for electoral favours.
Hear him: “The issue of taking Kenneth Okonkwo to court wouldn’t have arisen if he had stopped at those allegations. But he claimed he still has more he would expose about me in the future. So, I am very happy to take him to court so that he can expose me publicly, alongside other Nigerians. If any of them has any criminal allegations against me, they should bring them to court.
“Not just Kenneth, everybody should now say those things they know that is bad about me or I did that is wrong because it’s good for the system, it’s good for the society,” Obi said.
“So, if you know that when we were in primary school, this man was cheating or didn’t go to the primary school, didn’t go to secondary school, didn’t do, if you know this man has done something criminal somewhere, this is time to bring it up.”
For the umpteenth time, Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has warned about the dangerous implication of using state institutions, particularly the judiciary to destroy Nigeria’s democracy, saying it is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good.
Atiku, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), speaking on the heels of Tuesday’s verdict of the Court of Appeal, halting the de-registration order by the Federal High Court, insisted that judicial officers must not lend themselves to any act capable of undermining the nation’s democratic process.
The appellate court had ordered a stay of execution on the order made on Monday by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court Abuja, for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deregister the ADC alongside four other political parties).
A totally scandalised Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, had taken umbrage, sparing no hard words in upbraiding the lower court judge, stating that his likes were unfit to sit on the bench.
In a unanimous ruling by a three-man panel, the court held that Lifu’s action was “the highest form of judicial impertinence”, stressing that the Supreme Court previously held that a judge who acted in such a manner.
Describing his conduct as the height of judicial rascality, the upper court, stated: “Courts are enjoined to protect their integrity. This Court has supervisory authority over the trial court.
“The decision of the lower court to proceed with the judgment despite the express order of this court is a brazen violation of the hierarchy of the court and the 1999 Constitution.
This court has the duty to invoke its powers in ensuring that its orders are obeyed. The application for a stay of execution is here yet granted. The enforcement of the judgment is stayed.”
Atiku, who hailed the position of the higher court, which restored his hope to be on the ballot as presidential candidate in the 2027 election, also noted the role of INEC as “significant.”
He said: “I welcome the Court of Appeal’s decision to stay the execution of the Federal High Court judgement seeking the deregistration of our great party, the ADC, and four other political parties. It is particularly significant that INEC itself initiated the application for the stay.
“The development reflects growing public concern over judicial contradictions and politically charged rulings within the judiciary. “Any attempt to undermine Nigeria’s hard-won democracy through judicial manipulation is a grave danger to the Republic. If our democracy suffers further injury, history will demand accountability from those entrusted with dispensing justice.
Outside ADC, Lifu’s order, also included: Action Democratic Congress (ADC), Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Accord Party (AP) and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), similarly slammed for allegedly failing to meet the constitutional requirements for continued registration and participation in elections.
“He is running in contempt of the court. Justice Lifu should be arrested because he is acting in contempt of the court which is a criminal act,” were the exact words with which the African Democratic Congress (ADC), demonstrated its angst over the court ruling on Monday, ordering its de-registration as a political party in Nigeria.
A furious Bolaji Abdullahi, spokesman of the party, told his host while appearing as a guest on Monday’s edition of Politics Today, a public affairs programme on Channels Television that the judge of the Abuja Federal High Court who gave the order was actually playing with fire because of the consequences.
Directly accusing him of playing the script of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to ensure that President Bola Tinubu emerged the sole candidate for the 2027 presidential election, the party spokesman, was emphatic that the plan would not work, as head or tail, ADC must be on the ballot in all the elections.
Hear him: “There is a Court of Appeal order saying don’t hear this case until October 27. So, on what basis? You can’t place something on nothing. The Court of Appeal said don’t act on this until I hear it on October 27. So, on what basis did he deliver the judgement
“So, for us in the African Democratic Congress, what we’re convinced and they know is what they have done has no leg to stand on legally. What they want to do is to create doubts in the minds of the people that this ADC has too many legal cases, can we actually run on this? And to distract us. But we’re not distracted.
“We’re very clear. It was in spite of all they have done since ADC came on board that we ran one of the best and one of the most comprehensive direct primaries in the history of democracy in Nigeria. So, we are strong enough to withstand this. And that’s why I’m saying that we are going to contest in 2027. We’re ADC. We don’t buckle before dictatorship.”
Stressing on the implication of the judgement, which also affected Accord Party (AP), Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) for allegedly failing to meet constitutional and electoral performance requirements, following a suit by the National Forum of Former Legislators, he said it portended grave danger.
He added: “We are not surprised. We know that the Nigerian people believe that there is a problem with the judiciary, but what we did not expect is the level of judicial rascality that was demonstrated today.
“What we are saying is that we reject it in its totality, and we are saying that the people behind this are playing with fire. Hundreds, if not thousands, have obtained nomination forms and contested elections and emerged as candidates on the platform of the ADC.”
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