The Abia State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a swipe at the state governor, Dr. Alex Otti for accusing the party of sponsoring two groups who accused him (Otti) of sponsoring the election litigation of Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
PDP accused governor Otti of engaging in a blame game rather than responding to the allegations made by the two groups.
In a statement on Wednesday by Hon. Elder Abraham Amah, the Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, the party denied sponsoring the groups, noting that they are not members of the party.
According to the party, “The attention of the Abia PDP has been drawn to a media briefing by the spokesperson of Alex Otti, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma during which Otti called on the Nigerian President, the Chief of Army Staff, COAS, the National Security Adviser, NSA and the Inspector General of Police, IGP, to investigate the allegations made by two groups who alleged that he was using Abia State funds to sponsor the election litigation of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi as well as sponsoring the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, to cause terror in Abia State respectively.
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“During the media briefing, Otti contradicted himself several times including being subjudice in a case that is already in court and that speaks to the incompetence and confusion that have trailed and enveloped his administration right from inception. Acting without restraint, Alex Otti duly confirmed to the public that he already knows the outcome of the petitions at the tribunal when he said openly that the suits of the two political parties would be thrown into the trash bin on the 6th of October 2023. In a subsequent interview at a radio station in Umuahia he repeated same claims with much more assurance that the judges will rule in favor of LP and hence have nothing to worry about.
“Not done, after identifying the two groups that made the allegations, he still went ahead to say that groups were being sponsored by the two major opposition political parties, PDP and APC, whom he did not have the stomach to mention their names except saying that the Abia PDP Publicity Secretary had sometime in the past raised concerns about the Labour Party’s plan to cause discontent in Abia. PDP did raise such concerns because it had reliable and accurate intelligence that Labour actually planned such and would not deny it even at this point and it is on record that one of Otti’s appointees subsequently led “4000 widows to protest against removing Otti” and were received at the Michael Okpara Auditorium by a high ranking official of the government.
“Rather than ask the security agencies to apprehend and investigate the two groups who openly identified themselves and are clearly not members of PDP, Otti still hid under their usual shaming of the PDP tactics to point accusing fingers at the party. It smacks of political mischief and irresponsibility for the Labour Party to have an external locus of control and never admits its errors and mistakes but always looks for who to blame.
“We are not surprised that Otti and hjs government would continue to scapegoat the PDP for its irredeemable problems because for the past four months the only thing they have done is to locate their failures at the doorstep of the PDP including in this case when the the two organizations that participated in the briefings openly identified themselves and never claimed affiliations with the PDP.
“Abia PDP is a responsible and law abiding organization that has issued press releases several times and never hid under the umbrella of nebulous organisations to advance or promote its causes. We are very bold to own whatever we put out to the public and we insist that Alex Otti and the Labour Party are the ones overheating Abia with scaremongering and the earlier this rascality is called to order the better. Going about to claim that they already have foreknowledge of the ruling of the tribunal is a new low even for a low lying party and government.
“Relying on Otti’s revelations, the Abia PDP is curious to know how he knew, three days ahead of the judgement date that the two petitions against the declaration of Alex Otti as governor of Abia in the March 18, 2023 governorship election would be thrown into the trash bin. This is a red flag that should not be swept under the rug.
“We are constrained to call on the judicial authorities to investigate this revelation by Otti about the October 6 judgement because it is clearly subjudice and raises the specter of compromise in the litigation process of the election petition tribunal.
“We call on all Abians, lovers of freedom, liberty, justice and democracy to remain vigilant and ensure that the will of the people is not subverted by people using the apparatus of State power to intimidate anybody”.
