For the records, I started my banking career at Tony Elumelu’s Standard Bank. I have had to transverse virtually all units in the banking sector including being privy to top rated privileged information. This piece is not about that. I am still interested in working in the Bank.
By the way, I have read that Otti had besieged Abia political space like a Spartan Warrior, hiring thugs, cloning security agents and unfortunately ordering some of the overzealous ones among them to maim and even kill people from the other side. I will be half surprised if his lifestyle as a politician did not degenerate to that because Alex Otti I had met in First Bank at the time appealed to me as an upcoming GESTAPO. He may recollect the ADAMU MUSA story of 2002 which inadvertently has become a standard practice in all banks in Nigeria for killing the passion in young talents. That will be the story for another day.
Why would Otti want to be the Governor of Abia State? Could it be that Otti’s health has relapsed into an incurable dementia? I am wondering if Otti is suffering from sudden loss of memory because the last time I checked, he is poor in ideation, origination and below average in consolidation. In what looked like a policy summersault, Otti paused the growth of Diamond bank compared to what Onwuka and Dozie did before his advent. Those who have poor knowledge of the banking sector ignorantly hail him as the Messiah without knowing that a roundly skilled administrator would have done way better. His years in Diamond bank (with an overall staff strength of less than 3,000 persons) exposed him as a poor Risk Manager, otherwise he would not have institutionlised CORPORATE PROSTITUTION, that encouraged our girls to hawk sex to meet outrageous targets while more serious Chief Executives leveraged on Retail banking to cross the mark. That is the man that wants to manage an Abia of no less than two million persons.
While I was preparing to do this piece, I watched CHELSEA fall from their dizzy height. They were humiliated at home by a ten man PARIS SAINTGERMAIN (PSG). What struck me was the intimidating media hype CHELSEA is associated with. I tried to do a comparative analysis between Alex Otti and CHELSEA. It occurred to me that “noisy neighbors” who are associated with unique class (like you) could suffer humiliating defeats and a coveted trophy elude them like forever.
You will however note that the amazing lesson to be learnt in the CHELSEA story is; football like politics is played on the field, not by engaging the services of media hirelings, enjoying deafening hype or by a coach that professes to be the SPECIAL ONE as if a student marks his own scripts. This piece is not about football. We can only draw the sweet analogy inherent in it.
For those who think I glory in vain stories, those who think I am not a great subjective writer, let them do a fair analysis of how the banking Industry has honored Otti with a less fancied CARLING CUP while ensuring that the big one CHAMPIONG LEAGUE (in your case, ABIA GOVERNORSHIP) will elude you this football, sorry political season. This happens when one overrates himself or worse still think the tactics that wins local games (that is what Diamond Bank is) could be applied in the prosecution of International ones. By the way, same team, same tactics, same method has never produced a different result.
For those who may not be patient enough to read my story. Alex Otti, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) Standard bearer in Abia State told me that, “in the abundance of men’s incredible promises, there’s an equal abundance of deceit”. That was Otti’s reply when I questioned his unachievable road map for the development of Abia (that is what I call the building of an Industrial Park valued at One Hundred Million Dollars, Free Education in an Abia State where the monthly Gross earnings vaccilate between three to four billion, 85% of which is committed to payment of wages; relocation of Ariaria Market, banning of KEKE NAPEP to give way for 20,000 free cars among others), the poor integrity baggage that haunts Otti like a plague and the obvious large people management deficit that hurts his aspiration to be the Governor of Abia State. Of all the lies Otti has started telling Abians, he already had planned an escape route not minding their grave implications for the development of our own State.
Recall your meeting with NGWA PROFESSIONALS ASSOCIATION in Lagos which coincided with my annual leave in January 2015. Though I am not NGWA, you had reasoned that by virtue of my professional training, to wit; mastery of computers that I could be useful to your effort to recruit media tigers which sole objective would be to mop up sentiments, play up the NGWA/OLD BENDE tribal politics which would culminate in pitching these divides against the other to your advantage. I can now imagine why you harassed me with several inbox messages seeking for my support to join your PROPAGANDA GROUP.
As you addressed the group, what crossed my mind was the popular saying that “When one with honeyed words but evil mind persuades the mob, great woes befall the state”.
Let us say your memory is failing you. The venue was GOLDEN TULIP hotels, in their exquisite bar and was attended by notable NGWA LAWYERS like Barr Kelechi Ukaumunna and Barr Oracle Nwala. If those who attended were shocked, I was not. Many thoughts ran riots in my mind. I reasoned that if you succeed (God forbid) in your grand design of deceit, like it happens in the bank; you may end up extinguishing Abia. Just why would you work so hard to paint a honey picture of your personality while in the real sense, your value is no more than the paper status of most banks in Nigeria while they secretly fade away. Alex Otti was in the banking sector before Hurricane Sanusi, let him tell us which bank was honest enough to accept they were toxic apart from exposing depositors’ common wealth to life choking risks.
I do not know if Alex Otti has succeeded in raising up the PROPAGANDA TEAM that was mandated to hoodwink Abians, set tall promises and make everything look like Uhuru is already here. God who knows all mortal consequences will forbid Alex Otti to succeed beyond that hype. In the field he will fail.
The governance of Abia State cannot be trusted in the hands of a man whose statutory legal monthly earnings were no more than Two million naira but who hired airplanes in excess of forty million naira monthly. I don’t know how else a fraudster can be identified. While Otti gallivanted in opulence, the pockets of thousands of shareholders whose wealth he held in trust depleted.
Alex Otti is a collaborator in chief when it comes to Money laundering. It is easy to guess why most State Governors and top notch politicians identify with him. I recollect that he institutionlised the concept of 50-50. You steal, I launder for you, we share 50 – 50. You think I am lying? Let him tell us the source of the stupendous wealth. Where is his industry? What does he manufacture? Where is his tax profile? Who did he employ?
Abia needs to develop further. I accept this with all my muscles standing out. But, this mandate cannot be given to a desperate person. The mandate of taking Abia to the next level cannot be entrusted in the hands of a man who shamelessly denied his nativity in a manner that is criminal as it is disgusting.
I have seen Otti mill around Enugu with Mary Ikoku. I will not dig into Otti’s personal life. However, for presenting himself for aspiration for the highest office in my State, I reserve the right to scrutinize his private life. If the likes of Mary Ikoku will form the fulcrum of Otti’s wild goose chase, then Abians may be in short supply of responsible women. I will leave it at that but I hope Mary Ikoku will be responsive, accountable and transparent enough to present to us her SURE P score card. By the way, she should be happily married and does not need to move from NIKE LAKE to UNIVERSAL HOTELS Enugu with Alex Otti at such unholy hours and in hotelk suites. Nobody will be proud of her profile. I regret to say this: an Alex Otti Governorship will be peopled by the likes of Mary Ikoku who are morally loose, debased and deficient in integrity.
In my next piece, I will give more facts to substantiate why I insist Otti is a failed Manager and would remain a pitiable sight as Governor (God forbid)!
Franklin James Onyekwere Nwankwo
Enugu
