Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti, has ruled out seeking a senatorial seat after leaving office in 2031, saying he would retire from politics and allow the younger generation to take over leadership.
Governor Otti spoke on Thursday while formally receiving the 2023 governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dr Ngozika Gladys Johnson-Chukwunenye, and her supporters into the Labour Party (LP) in Umuahia.
The governor, while responding to concerns about Abia’s political future after his tenure, said his administration’s greatest legacy would be good governance and a successor chosen collectively by Abians.
“So what I can assure you is that by the time I’m done, the person that will succeed me will be better than me.
“Once I finish this one, I will retire. I want the young people to take over. We should stop this sit-tight system.
“I don’t want to be a godfather. We will all sit down, look at everybody, and say who is the best person for this job. And then all of us would agree and we will campaign for him”, the governor stated.
Governor Otti also said he had no interest in contesting for the Senate after his tenure, stressing that his attention remains focused on delivering on his mandate.
The governor said his administration had deliberately prioritised the most pressing challenges confronting the state, noting that the scale of work required meant that the government could not address every problem simultaneously.
“This is just about 39 months. Everything cannot be done in one day, particularly in a place that has been badly managed in the last 24 years.
“It takes a lot of time, resources and planning”, he said.
Governor Otti said the administration initially focused on restoring Aba and Umuahia before extending its interventions to communities in the hinterlands.
“The most important areas for us were to restore Aba and Umuahia. And I can tell you without any fear of contradiction that we have literally restored those cities.
“We are now moving into the hinterlands, and we will continue until we reach everywhere”, he said.
Governor Otti recalled Johnson-Chukwunenye’s 2023 governorship bid on the SDP platform, describing it as courageous.
The Governor welcomed her into the Labour Party and commended her for bringing children from the School for the Blind to the event.
He described her concern for vulnerable members of society as an important part of building a caring society.
Earlier, the 2023 governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Dr Ngozika Gladys Johnson-Chukwunenye, said she joined the LP after observing what she described as significant changes in the state under the Otti administration.
She said the payment of salary arrears, regular salaries, attention to pensioners and road rehabilitation in Aba and Umuahia influenced her decision to join the LP.
“I saw a state that was once the dustbin of unpaid salaries: 29 months of arrears, now paying salaries on the 28th of every month.
“I saw pensioners who were left to die, now smiling again because Abia remembers them”.
Johnson-Chukwunenye said the developments strengthened her resolve to support Governor Otti’s second-term bid.
“It became my own divinely guided conviction that my assignment must align with this vision, hence my decision to openly and joyfully support this second-term bid; not for politics, but for posterity”, she said.
The 2023 SDP Governorship candidate added that her advocacy for vulnerable people predated her political involvement by more than 15 years, noting that the Otti led administration’s focus on vulnerable people, youths, women and social inclusion aligned with her humanitarian convictions.
