RE: IS GOV ALEX OTTI ACTUALLY A DOCTOR?
It is simply not clear what Chinonye Mba, an intellectual lilliputian and author of the above referenced piece, intends to achieve other than to fruitlessly labour to launder the image of Okezie Ikpeazu, the erstwhile Abia State Governor – his paymaster – just to earn a morsel of porridge as a reward.
Unfortunately for him, his writeup was coming at a time many Abia indigenes and residents have resolved to forget about Okezie Ikpeazu and his inglorious eight years of waste and move forward with a progressive, result-driven and serious-minded government.
He doesn’t seem to realise that Okezie Ikpeazu represents the darkest age in Abia’s political history and has been so appropriately consigned to the hall of shame, where he belongs till eternity. So, how can someone with his right senses begin to compare darkness with light?
Yes, of course! While Ikpeazu represents darkness in Abia political trajectory, Gov. Alex Chioma Otti OFR, represents light. This is incontrovertible and remains the huge difference between the two men and what they mean to the average Abia indigene – home and in diaspora.
And, if possessing an academic doctoral degree, like Okezie Ikpeazu, encourages the holder to steal someone else’s mandate and yet not have the ability and capacity to deploy it efficiently to impact lives positively, then I am content with an honorary doctoral degree, which recognises citizen’s positive contribution to the development of man and his society. It was this attribute that qualified Gov. Otti for Honarary Doctoral Degrees and the Officer of the Federal Republic bestowed on him by the Federal Government of Nigeria – a special recognition reserved for men of honour, integrity and outstanding contribution to national development. Truly, only men of honour as Gov. Otti, earn such highly revered national awards.
For what is the essence of an academic certificate in the form of doctoral degree, when the holder lacked the virtue and persuasion to make a difference in the life of the ordinary man on the street?
Indeed, evidence abound that Okezie Ikpeazu’s eight years as governor of Abia were the worst years of the locust, marked by unprecedented retardation in virtually every sphere, in terms of economic and infrastructure development.
It was an era when the image of Abia, God’s Own State, and proud home state of great men and women, including the former Premier of the defunct Eastern Region, late Dr Mike Okpara, dipped further to the lowest ebb, attracting a pariah status to the state.
In our university days, first class students had so much going for them. Not only did they command the respect of their contemporaries and lecturers, society also held them in strong awe because of their exceptional intellectual prowess.
Outside the Ivory Tower, their lifestyle is incredibly exemplary as they always distinguished themselves in any venture they engaged in.
Gov. Alex Otti belongs to this specie of unique and exceptionally endowed brains, who led their peers in their days of academic pursuit, from the primary to the secondary and tertiary levels.
In 1988, he graduated with a First Class Honours Degree in Economics from the University of Port Harcourt.
Gov. Otti may not have acquired the academic doctoral degree but possesses such highly intimidating credentials that place him head and shoulders above the likes of Okezie Ikpeazu, even with their PhD.
Gov. Otti has never pretended to have acquired academic doctorate degree. But aside having a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from the University of Lagos in 1994, he has attended various international courses, including the Executive Development Programmes of the Columbia Business and Stanford Business School and Wharton Business School (University of Pennsylvania). He also did an executive programme at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France. Do these academic exploits and attainments not equal or even surpass Ikpeazu’s PhD?
In 2009 he was conferred with an honorary doctorate degree by the Babcock University and in 2012, an Honorary Doctor of Science (D.Sc.) Degree by the University of Port Harcourt. Also in 2013, he received another Honorary Doctorate Degree from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
He was bestowed these awards as a mark of honour and in recognition of his outstanding attainment in his career as an astute and consummate banker, businessman and administrator par excellence.
As a renowned, internationally acclaimed economist, Gov. Otti has had the privilege to deliver scholarly packaged lectures in different institutions within and outside Nigeria.
In May, he presented a lecture at the prestigious University of Cambridge, Judge Business School, United Kingdom, where he spoke on, “State Governance and Economic Transitions: Meeting the Challenges through a Citizen-centred Approach.”
Recently, Gov. Otti was also a Guest Lecturer at the University School of Advanced International Affairs (SAIS), United States of America.
All the lectures were scholarly presented and have further swelled the governor’s rich profile, and all that have happened in barely one year of his stay in office as Governor.
I challenge Chinonye Mba to tell the world where his Okezie Ikpeazu delivered high profile lecture in a forum of international and erudite audience with his so-called PhD beyond the confines of the Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU).
And who does not know that the unusual theatrical ABSU adventure was only a high-level strategy designed to provide a platform for some beauty pageantry of a sort. It was a public knowledge that the grandstanding was well far from a serious academic exercise.
Again, is it not preposterous and antithetical that the first Abia governor with PhD was by all standard the worst governor in the history of the state? A PhD governor that dragged the name of Abia in the mud, placing the state on the lowest rung of the ladder, in terms of good governance and economic development.
Repeatedly, Ikpeazu not only ridiculed himself but also desecrated the exalted Office of the Governor by some of his public show of shame and unscrupulous acts that cast aspersions on his status as a PhD holder.
In his last days as governor, Okezie Ikpeazu (PhD) also brought shame to Abia, when he was busy parading himself as Personal Assistant to his fellow Gov. Nyesom Wike, who had neither PhD nor Honarary Doctorate Degree. Even after he left office, the ex-Abia governor still ‘dey shine shoe for him Oga minister for Abuja’.
With his Ph.D, Okezie Ikpeazu is still running errands and “arranging sweet, sweet things” for his minister boss.
This is the man Chinonye Mbah has so elevated and idolized, comparing him with a man of impeccable credentials and unimpeachable track record. A man so divinely chosen and given to Abia to clean the mess left behind by Ikpeazu in the eight years of his misrule.
Perhaps, Chinonye Mba’s audience live in another planet, where his cock-and-bull story about how Okezie Ikeazu defeated Gov. Otti nine times could receive a semblance of attention. Otherwise, he had merely wasted his time and data, if he was actually writing for a Nigerian audience.
Any keen and dispassionate observer of the Abia State Governorship Elections in 2015 and 2019 from any part of the country and beyond can truly attest that Otti had landslide over Ikpeazu at the various instances.
The result of the 2023 Governorship poll in the state finally proved the difference between Ikpeazu and Gov. Otti in a free, fair and credible contest. That was when the Obingwa magic was demystified and rendered absolutely impotent as the election decider to the chargrin and shame of Chinonye Mba and his co-travellers in the decimated, dead-and-buried Peoples Democratic Party.
Ctn. Ukoha Njoku Ukoha
Chief Press Secretary to the Executive Governor of Abia State.
07-08-2024
