When factional APGA Governorship Candidate, Mr Alex Otti, started journeying through the nooks and crannies of USA, Europe and African countries in furtherance of his campaign to occupy a non vacant position in Abia State Government House, I knew he went with his usual packets of lies garnished to mendaciously deceive Abians that are currently far from home.
His goal was simply to obtain hard working Abians by all means possible, to fund his dead on arrival second electoral expedition which is destined to end in failure. And as usual, he traveled with no single Abia Leader of note as all well meaning Abia leaders have long advised him to allow the incumbent complete his equitable two terms in office to further spread good dividends of democracy as he has been doing since 2015.
While it sounded funny at first, I have long confirmed from a member of his team who joined him to Lagos last week, where he regurgitated an old documentary showing selected Abia roads and passed same off as current state of the roads, that Otti indeed continued on his usual perfidious campaign tactics of lies, deceit and OBT.
It is important to note that neither Governor Ikpeazu nor anyone working with him ever claimed that he has fixed all bad Abia roads requiring attention. It is only political desperation that would lead a character like Otti to elaborately embark on a mission to deceive Abians and in so doing de-market his state with lies in far USA, Europe and Lagos.
“Iyke, Immediately our principal (Alex Otti) asked that a documentary be played for our people in Lagos to know the state of Abia roads and I started seeing old videos of faulks road, Ukaegbu, Ariaria etc I looked so stupid before those of them that normally come home who noticed those were fake videos, but none could tell him to stop. I couldn’t stomach it again. I saw in him a man that could go any length to deceive the public and I am done with his campaign of deceit and calumny” …that was a message sent to me by a member of Alex Otti’s team.
Could this be the reason it has been difficult for Otti and APGA to campaign in Aba and environs, knowing that it will amount to political suicide to play such dirty fake documentary trick on Abians who are resident in the state and are benefiting from the infrastructural development strides of the Ikpeazu’s administration?
I have tried carefully to capture an imaginary picture of a factional candidate of a party, using a fake documentary to gather people in Europe, USA and Lagos, even when many of them have been following reports from home on the giant strides in Abia State under Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, just to get them to part with their money and support him.
While it is not astonishing to people like me who also listened to Otti at the office of Aba Chamber of Commerce in 2015, make false claims on how he secured a loan of $100b from International Financial Corporation (IFC), as a private citizen, to develop Aba, this show of documentary shame will appear to me to be a new low for even a man with his reputation.
Anyone who gathers our hardworking and enlightened businessmen and industrialists at Aba Chamber of Commerce to openly make such level of mockery of their intelligence, can easily lie to anybody anywhere, in desperation.
In 2015, the same fake documentary could not win Mazi Otti the Governorship position in Abia State but certainly hoodwinked mostly non Abians to part with their hard earned cash to support his doomed campaign. Only him will know what he is now telling his 2015 victims; may be that is why he continues to lie to himself and the gullible that he won the 2015 election but was robbed by the judges of the Supreme Court and Olisah Metuh, his favorite fall guys.
APGA that has been seriously battered and tagged ‘a yahoo yahoo party’ where party leaders at all levels defraud loyal party members, is yet to tell the World the agenda and manifesto of the party in Abia State outside extortion of party members and playing of fake videos to whip up emotions of Abians outside the shores of the State.
Has anyone heard from APGA or their factional candidate, Alex Otti, what they plan to do better than Governor Ikpeazu and how? All they dwell on is what the Governor has not done as if the Governor was ever expected to solve all Abia challenges within 4 years.
Let them also show a documentary of the before and after images of the 67 road projects completed by Governor Ikpeazu and the 94 ongoing projects that includes Faulks road and the first ever flyover in Abia State. Otti shouldn’t forget to show our people living outside the state ongoing work at PH road Aba and other projects with contractors actively back on site.
Alex Otti’s case is that of a man whose house is on fire and he is busy pursuing rats. Everyday, aggrieved members leave APGA in droves while their factional candidate is busy trotting the globe with fake documentaries. Who will vote for him in 2019 when he must have lost all his local supporters and APGA members, including his former aides and allies?
For free, let me advice APGA and their factional candidate; unless it is for the attendees to contribute money for Mr Otti as usual for his campaigns, if the video shown in Lagos, New York etc is meant to change people’s mind as to who to support, APGA just failed. Those in the audience that can transport themselves back to Abia for election or Yuletide will also abandon APGA sinking ship once they discover Otti lied to them, after seeing the true picture of what Ikpeazu has done so far as well as his willingness to do more.
It was late President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana that faced with an “Otti” as an opponent made tbe following statement: “Those who would judge us merely by the heights we have achieved would do well to remember the depths from which we started…”.
Certainly, Governor Ikpeazu has not solved all Abia problems in 3 years but we are no longer where we were in 2015 and he is ready, willing and able to do much more in the coming years.
