Truth Under Siege: A Rebuttal to Chief John Okiyi Kalu and Iyke Mba’s Misguided Assault on Governor Alex Otti
When history is rewritten by those who once presided over decay, it becomes the sacred duty of truth to speak louder than propaganda. The recent publications by Chief John Okiyi Kalu and Mr Iyke Mba — both politically tainted veterans of Abia’s old order — are not critiques born of conscience; they are the last gasps of a vanishing political species, desperate to claw relevance in a state finally emerging from decades of misrule.
The Myth of the “N500 Million Approval Limit”
Chief John Okiyi Kalu, a former Information Commissioner under the administration that left Abia drowning in debt and unpaid salaries, now parades himself as a guardian of fiscal morality. Irony died the day he published his “Public Alert.”
There is no evidence — legislative, administrative, or statutory — that Governor Alex Otti ever “surreptitiously increased his approval limit” to ₦500 million. Approval ceilings are governed by the Abia State Financial Regulations (Revised 2020) and the Public Procurement Law 2012, both of which require Executive Council concurrence and legislative gazetting. Neither has been altered.
Moreover, procurement records — publicly posted on abiastate.gov.ng — reveal that all major contracts, from the Port Harcourt Road reconstruction to the Aba-Umuahia dualization, were awarded through open competitive bidding and EXCO ratification.
If Chief Kalu possesses contrary evidence, he owes it to Abians to publish the gazette, the minute of the supposed House resolution, or the signed fiscal circular. Absent that, his rhetoric is an exercise in hearsay and self-projection from those who once governed Abia through backdoor memos and opaque “special releases.”
Ken Ahia, SAN, and the Julius Berger Contract Myth
The allegation that Governor Otti paid ₦50 million to his “personal lawyer” for consulting on the Julius Berger project is another distortion of half-facts. Under Nigerian procurement law, external counsel may be engaged on a project of national scale when the transaction involves complex legal frameworks, international negotiation, or multi-tier guarantees. The Port Harcourt Road contract required high-level advisory work on EPC, risk allocation, and FIDIC documentation — areas beyond the routine drafting competence of a state civil service.
Furthermore, Ken Ahia SAN is not a “friend-of-the-Governor” but a senior legal practitioner of national repute, part of a consortium that rendered contractual risk analysis before final signatures with Julius Berger Nigeria Plc. The payment in question was duly appropriated under the Works & Infrastructure budget head, endorsed by the Attorney General and Permanent Secretary (Finance), and fully captured in the state’s 2024 Q1 Budget Performance Report.
Iyke Mba’s Grandstanding and the Irony of Memory
Mr Iyke Mba’s sermon on “technocratic disappointment” collapses under the weight of basic logic. The same man who wrote political jingles for the old PDP establishment now lectures Abians on accountability — the very principle his patrons betrayed for twenty years.
The so-called “lavish flag-off” he ridicules was in fact the official commencement of the Umuahia–Uzuakoli–Ohafia Road Rehabilitation Project, financed through transparent appropriation and donor oversight. Unlike previous governments that staged flamboyant ceremonies without a single bulldozer on site, the Otti administration launched that project after mobilization funds were disbursed, not before.
The difference is substance. Otti’s flag-offs come with engineering drawings, funding sources, and timelines — not political carnival tents.
Abia’s Fiscal Rebirth
Under Alex Otti, Abia has published — for the first time in decades — Quarterly Budget Performance Reports, Citizens’ Budgets, and Audited Financial Statements. The Debt Management Office (Abia) now functions under international public-finance standards, with all borrowings reflected in the DMO’s national dashboard.
IGR has risen from ₦14.7 billion (2022) to over ₦25 billion (2024 YTD) without increasing tax rates, but through automation and leak-proof digitalization. Civil servants, previously owed 14 months of arrears, have been cleared. Pension liabilities have been reduced by 68%. These are measurable reforms, not political slogans.
Who Really Fears Accountability?
It is the ghosts of yesterday — not the leaders of today — that fear the light of due process. Chief Okiyi Kalu was part of an administration where over 60% of capital expenditure went untraced, according to the Abia State Audit Report (2020). Mr Mba stood silent then; now he finds his voice because the tap of patronage has closed.
Governor Alex Otti is neither a saint nor a magician. But he represents a paradigm shift from opaque governance to data-driven accountability. For the first time, Abia’s budgets, tenders, and expenditure summaries are one click away — not whispered in hotel lobbies.
History’s Verdict
History will not remember the loudest accusers; it will remember the cleanest books. Chief Kalu and Mr Mba should stop manufacturing scandals from envy and nostalgia. Their time of rentier politics is over.
Governor Alex Otti’s administration stands vindicated by openness, by published accounts, and by the steady resurrection of a state long buried under their own brand of mediocrity.
AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke
University of Abuja
Economist & Public Policy Analyst
