Good Governance - Abia ThinkTank News

Nov

2025

A Burning Desire: A Poetic Chronicle Of Abia’s Rebirth – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance

A BURNING DESIRE A Poetic Chronicle of Abia’s Rebirth Aba is rising again—not by accident,but through a leadership whose vision burns like dawn breaking through a long night. Chinedu Ikedieze (Aki) captures it best:Aba has never witnessed this kind of determined, deliberate leadership.His words echo the heartbeat of every Aba-born creative returning home to launch the Aba-Made Film Project—a renaissance that reclaims the city’s ancient genius for storytelling and reinvents it for a new generation. But this awakening is deeper than cinema.Through Project Ekwueme, 947 primary healthcare centres are being revived—turning shame into dignity,turning ₦500 maternity tragedies into world-class community…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

A New Abia In Motion: The Electric Bus Revolution Has Arrived – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance, Transportation

A New Abia in Motion: The Electric Bus Revolution Has Arrived Global Vision. Local Action. Real Impact. Across the world, great cities are defined not just by the height of their buildings but by the efficiency, safety, and dignity of their transportation systems. From Oslo to Seoul, from Kigali to Shenzhen, electric mobility has become the gold standard of modern governance—and today, Ndi Abia can proudly say: we are entering that global league. The unveiling of Abia’s brand-new electric buses is not merely a transport upgrade; it is a philosophical statement. It is the rebirth of a state that once…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

A Daniel Has Come To Judgement: Schooling Obinna Oriaku On Public Finance, Transparency And Intellectual Honesty – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Economy, Good Governance

A Daniel Has Come to Judgment: Schooling Obinna Oriaku on Public Finance, Transparency and Intellectual Honesty It is curious — almost tragicomic — that the same man who supervised Abia’s finances between 2015–2019 without publishing a single Quarterly Budget Implementation Report now seeks to interrogate Q2 and Q3 2025 documents with the zeal of a philosopher-king. But as Shakespeare warned in Measure for Measure, “Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.” In this debate, however, the irony is reversed: he who fell by opacity now pretends to rise by feigned transparency. Before we engage his questions, the stage…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

The Enyimba Economic Distric & The Rise Of Abia’s SME Powerhouse: A Historical And Data-Driven Argument- By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Business, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance

THE ENYIMBA ECONOMIC DISTRICT & THE RISE OF ABIA’S SME POWERHOUSE: A HISTORICAL AND DATA-DRIVEN ARGUMENT The story of Abia’s economic revival cannot be told without acknowledging the deep historical roots of enterprise in Aba. From the 1970s textile clusters to the legendary “Aba Made” boom of the 1980s and early 2000s, Abia has always been Nigeria’s grassroots innovation capital. Yet, despite its enormous informal productivity, successive administrations allowed the economic engine to decay—flooded roads, epileptic power, zero standards support, and no export architecture. By 2019, UNIDO and the National Bureau of Statistics classified the Aba industrial cluster as one…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

The Julius Berger Effect In Abia: Why Quality Infrastructure Is The New Political Currency – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance

The Julius Berger Effect in Abia: Why Quality Infrastructure Is the New Political Currency In a nation where road construction has historically served as a coded language for rent-seeking, inflated contracts, and premature collapse, Abia State’s insistence on Julius Berger is not merely an engineering decision—it is a philosophical reset. It signals a government that understands that reputation, not rhetoric, now builds economies. For the first time in decades, Abians are witnessing infrastructure designed to last, not to fail; infrastructure awarded on competence, not political patronage; infrastructure built to German standards, not patched with cosmetic asphalt that dissolves after the…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

Abia’s Q3 2025 Financial Report: Facts, Context And The Politics Of Manufactured Doubt – A Response To Obinna Oriaku – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Economy, Good Governance

Abia’s Q3 2025 Financial Report: Facts, Context and the Politics of Manufactured Doubt — A Response to Obinna Oriaku Public commentary on Abia State’s finances is healthy for democracy, but it becomes dangerous when it is anchored on selective interpretation, exaggerated arithmetic, and an unfortunate attempt to weaponize public misunderstanding. Obinna Oriaku’s critique of Abia’s Q3 2025 Financial Report is a vivid example of how numbers can be stretched to create suspicion where none exists, and how nostalgia for opacity can be disguised as patriotism. His concerns sound weighty until they are placed beside verifiable data, constitutional accounting rules and…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

What If Gov. Otti Is Wrong?: A Question That Falls Apart The Moment The Facts Arrive – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance

*WHAT IF GOV. OTTI IS WRONG? A Question That Falls Apart the Moment the Facts Arrive* Every political era has its favourite question, and in Abia today, the provocation of choice seems to be: “What if Gov. Otti is wrong?”It is a beautifully dramatic question—until one places it beside actual history, verifiable data, and the sobering memory of what Abia truly was before May 2023. Then the question disintegrates into dust. To ask whether Otti is wrong, one must first recall what he inherited. Between 2015 and 2023, salary arrears mounted across institutions like a national embarrassment. Abia Poly, Absu…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

Otti: When Results Eclipse The Politics Of Drama – By Ebere Uzoukwa, Ph.D(SSA To Governor Otti On Public Affairs)

Abia State, Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance, Politics

Otti: When Results Eclipse the Politics of Drama By Ebere Uzoukwa, PhD What should have been another calm and peaceful weekend in the God's Own State was instead disrupted by a wave of political noise. At the center of this disturbance was the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and member representing Bende Federal Constituency, Benjamin Kalu, who moved across some local government areas for political engagements. While such movements fall within his democratic rights, his outings quickly became less about responsible leadership and more about reckless theatrics. Instead of addressing his people with dignity and clarity of purpose,…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

Data-Driven Governance In Practice: Appraising Gov. Alex Otti’s Abia(2023-2025) Through Kassen’s Open- Data Lens – By Prof Chukwuemeka Ifegwu Eke

Abia State, Economy, Good Governance, Infrastructure

Data-Driven Governance in Practice: Appraising Gov. Alex Otti’s Abia (2023–2025) through Kassen’s Open-Data Lens Maxat Kassen’s Open Data Governance and Its Actors: Theory and Practice argues that credible reform happens when governments move beyond rhetoric to build “data value-chains”: publishing usable information, enabling intermediaries (media, civic tech, auditors) to interrogate it, and then translating that scrutiny into better policy. In this view, actors—not abstractions—do the work: executives who mandate disclosure, treasuries and CIOs who standardize formats, civil society that reuses data, and legislatures that codify norms. Judged against that framework, Abia State under Gov. Alex Otti shows many of the…

Nov

2025

0 Comments

By Abia ThinkTank

Otti’s Success Secret – By Casmir Robert

Columns/Opinions/Letters, Good Governance

Otti's Success Secret By Casmir Robert Gov Alex Otti's climb to where he's today, didn't start with flourish. It didn't start start with blaring of trumpet, or shooting of cannon shots. It began quietly and humbly. His was a journey planted,nurtured and watered by merit. He entered the banking industry humbly by merit,and worked his way through the rank and file through the same value. It was merit that took him to the pinnacle of the same industry. At the height of that glorious and highly successful career, he served as the Managing Director/ Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank,…