Good Governance

The photograph does not disprove Governor Alex Otti’s Star Paper Mill intervention; it actually shows why the intervention became necessary. Star Paper Mill had already become moribund long before the present administration. What Otti’s government did was to acquire the distressed asset from AMCON as part of a planned industrial-revival programme. AMCON formally handed the mill over to Abia State Government in December 2025, and the state disclosed that it paid ₦2.5 billion for the acquisition. 0 So showing pictures of the old gate and abandoned premises shortly after takeover and shouting “agents of falsehood” misses the point completely. The…

Oracle’s latest intervention, circulated under the title “The Much Touted ‘24 Years of PDP’: Otti Was Part of 18 of Those 24 Years!”, contains legitimate questions about workers’ welfare and university remuneration. But several of its central conclusions collapse once history, public finance and measurable outputs are separated from political rhetoric. The first problem is historical. Alex Otti was a banker, not a member of the Abia State Executive Council, House of Assembly or PDP government. His documented career shows that he worked in Nigerian International Bank, Intercontinental Merchant Bank, Société Bancaire Nigeria, UBA and First Bank before becoming Group…

Eke O Ako’s Debt Arithmetic: When Liabilities, Loans and Debt Stock Are Thrown Into One Pot Eke O Ako has produced what looks, at first glance, like an intimidating collection of figures against the Abia State Government. Unfortunately, once the figures are separated into their proper accounting categories, much of the dramatic conclusion begins to wobble. 😂 Numbers may be stubborn, but numbers placed in the wrong columns can also become very obedient servants of propaganda. The first problem with Eke O Ako’s argument is elementary: total liabilities in a government financial statement are not automatically synonymous with DMO public-debt…

VANGUARD NEWSPAPERS AND THE ABSU CONTROVERSY: WHEN OWEI LAKEMFA’S POWERFUL HEADLINE OUTRAN THE FACTS, HISTORY AND ECONOMICS At first, the title “ABSU: Running a University as a Local Village Contraption”, published by Vanguard Newspapers and written by Owei Lakemfa, seemed to promise a serious interrogation of university governance, funding, labour relations and institutional autonomy. It sounded like the beginning of a rigorous public-interest intervention. Unfortunately, as one travelled deeper into the piece, the thunder of the headline increasingly became louder than the economics, history and institutional context required to sustain it. Mr Lakemfa is entitled to criticise Governor Alex Otti.…

A POLITICAL ECONOMY REVIEW OF THE RECKONING IN GOD’S OWN STATE: WHY ALEX OTTI DESERVES A SECOND TERM AND WHY HIS REFORMATIVE INNOVATIONS MUST CONTINUE By AProf Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma, writing under the pen name AI-KO, has produced in The Reckoning in God’s Own State: Why Alex Otti Deserves a Second Term and Why His Reformative Innovations Must Continue an unusually expansive intervention in the political economy of subnational governance in Nigeria. The author identifies himself as a Nigerian writer, analyst and public intellectual whose writings traverse political history, governance and civic affairs. Although the work…

SO MOVING AN INDUCTION FOR SAFETY IS NOW EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSITY COLLAPSE? 😂 The Absurdity of Treating Safety as Collapse There is something almost comic about the argument that because an induction ceremony involving ABSU medical students was reportedly moved from ABSUTH to Rhema University amid tension and threats, this must automatically prove that the university has collapsed. Really? 😂 Since when did taking precautions become evidence of institutional failure? If there were credible concerns around the original venue, then relocating the ceremony was not weakness; it was common sense. The students still graduated, the ceremony still held, families still…

THE ₦158,000 ABSU SALARY STORY: WHERE THE DECEPTION BEGINS There is a legitimate conversation to be had about the remuneration of university lecturers in Nigeria, including lecturers at Abia State University. But legitimate advocacy does not require statistical sleight of hand, selective comparisons and political hero-making. The viral post being circulated by Obinna Oriaku is a classic example of how a real welfare question can be converted into a misleading political narrative. FIRST DECEPTION: A BANK ALERT IS NOT A SALARY STRUCTURE Look carefully at the screenshot. What does it actually establish? It shows a credit of ₦158,514.75 with a…

A PARAGRAPHIC CRITIQUE OF THE “WHERE ARE GOVERNOR OTTI’S LEGACY PROJECTS?” ARGUMENT The central weakness of the argument is not that it asks questions about Governor Alex Otti’s performance. Those questions are legitimate. Every governor should be subjected to scrutiny over expenditure, project completion, value for money, rural inclusion, pensions, hospitals, schools, electricity and industrial development. The problem is that the writer repeatedly moves from limited personal observation to sweeping statewide conclusions. He admits that he did not visit every part of Abia, specifically acknowledging that he did not visit the Old Bende axis, yet he confidently concludes that there…