No human enterprise or pursuit without an ideological foundation withstands storms or vagaries of time. The ideology or philosophy of an individual is the propeller of the individual’s aspiration.
Before Abraham Lincoln succeeded in becoming the sixteenth President of United States of America in 1861, he had experienced lots of failure in his political quest.
His aspiration was, however, not dampened because of numerous cases of failure.
His spirit of enterprise or adventure kept glowing because it was ideologically driven.
Abraham Lincoln’s ideology focussed on the Unity of America and Abolition of Slavery.
When eventually he emerged as President in 1861, history has it that he successfully fought the American Civil War between the North and South from 1861 to 1865, just to keep America United.
Driven by his ideology that every man should be free from any form of bondage, President Lincoln, through Union Measures such as Confiscation Acts and Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, brought the dreaded scourge of Human Slavery to a Glorious End.
If President Lincoln had had no ideology that propelled him, his initial failures in politics would have deterred him from aspiring any further.
Mr Alex Otti, a banker whose back after leaving Diamond Bank as Chief Executive is alleged to be associated with many unpalatable narratives, had a long romance with the Peoples Democratic Party. It was evident he nursed governorship ambition even as he romanced with PDP.
In early 2014 the immediate-past Governor of the State; Senator T A Orji, made it known to many in the State, who cared to listen, that, for the sake of equity and peace in the State, governorship of the State would shift to Ukwa/Ngwa zone.
On hearing this, Mr Otti, being driven only by vaulting ambition, derisively denounced his Arochukwu origin.
He quickly ran to Umuehim village in Isialangwa-South Local Government Area, where his late father had served as an Adventist Cleric, bought a piece of land even at an unusually expensive price, built a house and, to the surprise of all, unilaterally and uncustomarilly declared himself an ‘indigene of Ngwa’.
Unknown to him, what Governor T A Orji and PDP meant was not a broad categorization of Ukwa/Ngwa but Abia-South Senatorial District of Ukwa/Ngwa, since T A, himself, hails from Abia-Central.
Being inordinate and parochial in ambition and notoriously unconscionable, Mr Otti went into 2015 governorship election on falsity of indigeneship of Umuehim in Isialangwa-South.
As it has always been, lies would only lead to a disastrous destination. Alex Otti failed mercilessly in that adventure in 2015.
As at the time of 2015 election, Alex had a lot of cheap billions of Naira to throw about! Many fraud stars took advantage of his illicit magnanimity.
They served as his campaign cordinators and waisted no time or opportunity in getting their own share of the Diamond Cake.
According to one of English most influential Mathematician, Physicist, Astronomer, Theologian and Scientist of all times; Isaac Newton, For Every Action, There Is An Equal And Opposite Reaction.
For all the ‘Cheap and Unaccountable Money’ cheaply gotten and fruitlessly thrown about in 2015 by Alex, an Equal and Opposite Reaction was certainly inevitable. Diamond Bank became Distressed and Comatose. Depositors’ money disappeared into the thin air.
Except for the statutory intervention of both the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, that quickly intervened by negotiating with and handing over the management of Diamond Bank to hitherto unknown Access Bank, the fate of depositors in Diamond Bank would have been anything beyond their imagination.
Motivated by the erroneous sentiment that Government House, Umuahia would offer him an easier access to cheaper and more billions of naira that the recklessly managed Diamond Bank he unfortunately presided over could not give him, he again showed interest in 2019 governorship contest in Abia State.
His tussle for the governorship ticket of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, with Chief Chikwendu Udensi subjected him to the most expensive exploitation by APGA national leadership headed by a more unconscionable crook. Alex was dastardly milked dry.
Though he claimed to have succeeded in securing the APGA ticket, he has since become a mere shadow of himself.
Burdened by too much borrowing, he has either sold or mortgaged almost all the property he accumulated during his years as a banker. The one that almost tore his family apart recently is the secret sale of the house where his wife runs a restaurant at Victoria Island in Lagos.
Alex has consequently realized that, having not only been pauperized with the passage of time but equally deserted by more than seventy-five percent of all the politicians that gave him support in 2015, including ten out of the eleven members of Abia State House of Assembly who had won election on the platform of APGA, due to selfishness, insincerity in human relationship and greed, his effort would amount to hitting his head against a brick wall.
Sorry for Alex Otti! He has become frustrated and dejected!!
It is at the backdrop of this very unanticipated and discomforting development that Alex Otti has been cowed into stepping down his ambition for Mr Uche Ogah Lawani.
Quite unfortunate and painful for Otti, the Uche Ogah Lawani group has refused to be sincere in dealing with Alex. Convinced that, with his present penurious state, he will be completely incapable of making even the minutest scratch on the very intimidating yet captivating electoral value of Governor Okezie Victor Chibuikem Ikpeazu, Uche Ogah Lawani and his new-found god- father, who put Abia State in a terrible mess, night of last Friday, at Olokoro home of Senator Chris Adighije, refused to accede to Alex Otti’s demand that thirty percent (30%) of Abia State government appointments, patronages and accruals be given to him.
The meeting tagged, ‘Old Bende Must Unite And Take What Is Our Birthright, Equity Or No Equity’ and which was summoned and presided over by Chris Adighije, had started at the ground floor of his house in Olokoro in Umuahia-South but when no progress seemed to be in view, Adighije took Lawani, Otti and few others
upstairs.
It was there that Alex accepted to be contented with a twenty percent patronage from Abia State government if Lawani would be able to defeat Governor Okezie Victor Chibuikem Ikpeazu.
The two groups could not, however, address the audience they left downstairs after the meeting, as Alex insisted that the agreement must first be formally documented, signed, sealed and delivered.
This interesting development did not come to PDP as a surprise.
Psychologists in PDP had long forecast that a capricious and panchromatic character like Alex Otti, who could shamelessly publicly denounce his place of origin, can not go far in any endeavour he pretends to be engaged in.
PDP in Abia State wishes Alex Otti ‘good luck’ in his latest hallucination of ‘Accord Concordance’, as the late flamboyant Dr K O Mbadiwe would put it.
PDP in Abia State would, however, not be very glad to read, when it would appear as history, that one Alex Otti stepped down his ambition for one Uche Ogah Lawani and both ended up in political mishap.
Meanwhile, PDP has received, from a reliable source, that the sum of Twenty Billion Naira (N20b) has exchanged hand between leaders of All Progressives Congress in the State and the Independent National Electoral Commission; INEC, for the latter to write the Results of Governorship and House of Assembly Elections in Abia State on Saturday 9th March, 2019 and announce same for the former, not minding the Collective Will of the Abia Electorate.
This piece of information will, as usual, not constitute any threat or cause for distraction to PDP in Abia State.
The Party rather urges all her Members, Supporters and Admirers to come out committedly next Saturday, vote massively for PDP, obtain Results of Elections in their respective Polling Units, Accompany And Defend Their Results from One Level of Voting Process To The Other. The Collective Will of the People Must Prevail.
Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP,
Okwubunka of Asa,
State Publicity Secretary,
PDP, Abia State.
