THE ALEX OTTI ‘QUIT NOTICE’

Chuks Akamadu predicts victory for the APGA governorship aspirant in the next election

Iam sufficiently persuaded that in due season, what happened at Ngwa High School, Aba on July 20 would wear a definite shape. It had been Dr. Alex Otti’s formal declaration for the Abia State governorship race.

Although it was supposed to, put loosely, be an All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) exclusive event, a casual scan of the crowd that had thronged the venue clearly showed that they were, for all practical purposes, members of a “UNITED ABIA PARTY” who had come from the 17 local government councils of the state to witness the issuance of a “Quit Notice” by Dr. Otti to Governor Okezie Ikpeazu as well as seize the opportunity to enter into an irrevocable contract with the former who has since become the closest approximation of their collective aspiration, Dr. Otti.

Yes, APGA faithful were all over the place as expected, but they were visibly joined by other true Abia patriots who put aside political leanings to identify with an event that that would mark the beginning of the end of Armageddon in God’s Own State.

The mood at the historic gathering had paradoxically been an admixture of fury and relief. Fury, because a majority of Abians who still believe that the 2015 governorship election was daylight robbery have yet to recover from that rude shock. The “relief” dimension of it was that for so long, speculations had been rife that Dr. Otti was going to recover the people’s mandate in 2019, having failed to do so through the law courts in 2015.

So when the Big Masquerade spoke during the declaration, his “Quit Notice” words were soothing balm to the drained and thirsty souls that had been serially afflicted with poor governance, crass opportunism, mediocrity and chronic mental infertility that had been the lot of Abians since the coming to power of father and son – Chief T.A Orji and Mr. Chinedu Orji.

It is against the foregoing background that one can perfectly understand the ecstatic response Dr. Otti’s “Quit Notice” to the PDP-led government in Abia State attracted. For, it is difficult to blame a jubilant people who for the past 11 years have been forced to suffer the pains and pangs of man-made hardship and pervasive poverty, owing to the huge appetite for greed of a few and sheer lack of capacity to provide quality and accountable leadership.

Abia is indeed a curious case. According to William Arthur Ward, “The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires”. One is forced to ask: is it in our stars that for a decade and more, Abia has only had the first category of teachers when geniuses like Dr. Otti who are a combination of second and third categories are available? The “Quit Notice” was therefore a fitting sermon for Abians who needed a reason to be hopeful again.

For the Abia PDP, hell was let loose, once more. Having survived, through the judiciary, the Hurricane Abia that Dr. Otti was in 2015, there is heightened fear that without their customary “federal might”, surviving the Hurricane Abia Intoto that Dr. Otti is set to be in 2019 is looking like a “mission impossible”!

Romours have it that the PDP hawks who see Abia as their personal estate are currently in their political laboratory trying their hands on all sorts of voodoo schemes to retain power beyond May next year. Alas, what is supremely indisputable is that there is a season for all things under the sun: a season to come and a season to go; Abians have in their individual enlightened self-interest resolved that next year would be a season for PDP to go and a season for Dr. Otti’s APGA to come. Thankfully, in less than 180 days, this matter would have been laid to rest.

Sequel to Dr. Otti’s historic Ngwa High School declaration, I have had occasion to peep into my crystal ball, and what I saw was most gratifying. I saw a post-PDP Abia on reverse gear with Dr. Otti behind the driving wheels. I felt so excited that at last the right man has come to demonstrably halt Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s laughable attempt to build on the ruins he inherited from his predecessor.

I saw a new Abia- a state turned into a construction site with a multitude of patriotic labourers working round the clock to rebuild their land. I saw the wall of cronyism crumble and a legion of leeches and parasite beat a retreat from Abia’s treasury. I saw a new era where teachers and civil servants are paid regularly – as a matter of right (not favour) - whilst pensioners are treated with the right measure of dignity and compassion as deserving senior citizens.

Another striking feature of the new order that I saw in my crystal ball was a pronounced re-definition of governance. I saw competent, committed square pegs in square holes running the machinery of government with shared vision, effusive zeal, clinical precision and unambiguous policy direction. I also saw truck-load of thugs, touts and miscreants being relocated from Government House Umuahia, State Assembly Complex Umauahia, state MDAs in Umuahia and elsewhere to ultra-modern motor parks built by the government of Dr. Alex Otti.