UMUNWANWA BRIDGE: TINUBU DESERVES CREDIT—BUT PLEASE, DON’T DELETE OTTI FROM THE STORY! 😂😂😂
The propaganda orchestra has started again:
🎺 “Tinubu reconstructed Umunwanwa Bridge!”
🎺 “Tinubu has remembered Abia!”
🎺 “Everybody kneel down immediately!” 😂😂😂
Excellent!
President Bola Tinubu deserves genuine commendation for allowing the Federal Government to continue, redesign and fund efforts toward completing the historic Umunwanwa Bridge.
But before political magicians begin pulling bridges out of campaign hats, let us arrange the facts properly.
The project was first awarded by the Federal Government in 2019 under President Muhammadu Buhari. It was redesigned and re-awarded under President Tinubu in 2024.
Therefore, Tinubu did not conceive the project from the beginning.
He inherited it, sustained it and deserves credit for moving it forward.
Simple!
But there is another man the headline conveniently tried to make invisible:
GOVERNOR ALEX OTTI.
When funding difficulties reportedly stalled the contractors, Otti did not sit in Umuahia shouting:
«“It is a federal road! It is not my responsibility!”»
That was the favourite anthem of failed governments:
🎵 Federal road!
🎵 Federal bridge!
🎵 Federal gutter!
🎵 Federal pothole! 😂😂😂
Some governors were handed enormous federal allocations, intervention funds, ecological funds, Paris Club refunds, bailout funds and infrastructure opportunities—but what did their people receive?
Commissioning of signboards.
Launching of committees.
Flagging-off of flagging-off ceremonies.
And potholes that successfully completed two terms in office! 😂
They received opportunities and blew them.
They inherited projects and abandoned them.
They collected money and produced excuses.
They saw collapsed infrastructure and began debating whether the suffering was federal, state or local government suffering. 😂😂😂
Governor Alex Otti chose a different path.
He met the contractors handling the stalled Umunwanwa and Aba–Owerri federal projects.
He demanded explanations.
The contractors reportedly blamed funding difficulties.
Otti then offered to engage the Federal Ministry of Works alongside them, while directing immediate intervention on the impassable Umunwanwa–Ubakala section.
That is leadership!
Not every governor given access to the Presidency converts that relationship into roads, bridges and relief for ordinary citizens.
Some used presidential access to collect photographs.
Some collected handshakes.
Some collected political appointments for their relatives.
Some returned home with nothing except airport videos and heavily edited press releases! 😂😂😂
But Otti has used constructive engagement with the Tinubu administration to secure approvals for Abia to intervene on strategic federal roads.
Even more remarkable, Otti has publicly stated that Abia is not expecting repayment under the present federal policy.
Read that again:
ABIA MAY NOT BE REFUNDED—YET OTTI IS STILL FIXING THE ROADS!
Why?
Because vehicles do not ask whether a pothole belongs to Abuja or Umuahia before breaking their shock absorbers.
Pregnant women do not ask whether a collapsed road is federal before suffering on it.
Businesses do not calculate constitutional responsibility before losing money in traffic.
That is the difference between governance and excuse manufacturing.
President Tinubu deserves credit for the federal cooperation.
Governor Otti deserves credit for pursuing the projects, engaging the contractors, pressing the Federal Government and refusing to abandon Abians simply because the roads carry a federal label.
So, let nobody use praise for Tinubu as an excuse to erase Otti.
And let nobody praise Otti by denying Tinubu his legitimate credit.
The truthful sequence is:
✅ Buhari’s administration first awarded the project in 2019.
✅ Tinubu’s administration redesigned, re-awarded and continued it.
✅ Funding difficulties later stalled progress.
✅ Otti intervened, engaged the contractors and Federal Government, and ordered urgent remedial action.
✅ Abians are the ultimate beneficiaries.
That is what healthy federalism should look like.
Not the former system where governors watched federal roads collapse, folded their arms and announced:
«“Please direct your suffering to Abuja.” 😂😂😂»
Those attacking Otti’s working relationship with Tinubu are merely uncomfortable because cooperation is producing results.
They wanted quarrels.
They wanted political warfare.
They wanted Otti to insult the President every morning so that Abia could lose every opportunity by afternoon.
Sorry!
Otti understands that governance is not an online wrestling competition.
You can belong to different political parties and still work together for the people.
You can support Peter Obi and still acknowledge a useful federal intervention.
You can commend Tinubu without surrendering Abia to the APC.
Only political toddlers believe cooperation automatically means political adoption! 😂😂😂
THE HONEST HEADLINE
“Pro-Tinubu Group Hails Tinubu as Otti’s Persistent Engagement Helps Revive Buhari-Era Umunwanwa Bridge Project.”
That headline gives everyone legitimate credit.
No historical kidnapping.
No political bleaching.
No erasing Otti because his competence is making some people uncomfortable.
And no reconstructing propaganda faster than the bridge itself! 😂😂😂
