GOV. ALEX OTTI AND DSP BENJAMIN KALU: WHEN POLITICS BECOMES SPORT, AND GOVERNANCE BECOMES THE SCORECARD
If politics were a competitive sport in Abia today, Deputy Speaker Benjamin Kalu appears to have chosen a single favourite event: bashing Governor Alex Otti. Week after week, interview after interview, press line after press line, the fixation is unmistakable. Not policy alternatives. Not competing development blueprints. Not verifiable achievements on Abia soil. Just relentless shadowboxing with a governor who is already in office and already delivering—however imperfectly—within the full glare of public scrutiny.
That obsession is politically revealing. Serious contenders build parallel records; unserious ones build narratives. Governor Otti’s strength is that he governs while being criticised. He has hosted opposition figures openly, kept channels of engagement alive, and resisted the temptation to personalise dissent. His administration has focused—sometimes quietly, sometimes noisily—on roads, health systems, public transport reform, budgetary discipline, and institutional reset. The argument around Otti is no longer whether he exists, but whether his policies work. That is the mark of relevance.
By contrast, DSP Kalu’s repeated public attacks increasingly resemble a sport rather than a strategy. But politics is not won by heckling from the sidelines. It is won by convincing a discerning electorate that you have built something better, somewhere tangible, somewhere visible. Federal title alone does not substitute for local delivery. Power borrowed from Abuja does not automatically translate into legitimacy earned in Abia.
And this is where a hard cultural truth must be stated plainly, without malice. In Igbo wisdom, there is a saying: ọ nọ nso, ọ gaghị abụ nke gị—it is close to you, but it will never be yours. Office proximity is not office possession. Hovering around power, boasting about hypothetical runs, or threatening incumbents does not confer entitlement. The Abia governorship is not inherited by noise, nor captured by bravado.
If DSP Kalu truly seeks relevance in Abia’s future, the counsel is simple and sincere: stop boasting, stop shadowboxing, stop treating criticism of Otti as a career path. Support visible change where it exists, offer credible alternatives where it doesn’t, and build a record that can stand beside—not merely against—another man’s stewardship.
Abia 2027 will not be decided by who shouted loudest or threatened hardest. It will be decided by who respected the intelligence of the people, understood the moment, and proved—on the ground—that leadership is more than proximity to power.
Because in the end, ọ nọ nso is not enough. Power that is never earned will never be yours.
AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke
