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- October 18, 2025
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Otti’s Threat to Opponents and Stinks of Hypocrisy
Otti’s Threat to Opponents and Stinks of Hypocrisy
Ike Agunaechemba
It was one of Nigeria’s living statesman, former President Goodluck, who said: “…my ambition, and indeed the ambition of anybody, is not worth the blood of any Nigerian. True to his solemn declaration at the flag-off of his campaign for the 2015 general election at the Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, Jonathan quietly handed over to late President Muhammadu Buhari who was declared winner of the poll.
The then President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces with all the powers in his kitty, gradually conceded defeat without minding how the victory was secured whether there were infractions from any quarters even as he then Minister Godsday Orubebe openly accused the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) Chairman that time, Professor Attahiru Jega, of not been fair.
However, fast forward to 2025, a sitting governor and supposed chief security officer of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti, who came from the corporate world, where diplomacy is the watchword, has declared otherwise that his ambition is worth the blood of Abians and any other Nigerian who tampered with the election in which he is likely going to be seeking second term of office.
Otti, elected on the self acclaimed sanctimonious Labour Party (LP), gave this indication on Thursday during the October edition of Alex Otti Speaks to Abians held at the Government House, Umuahia, in a video shared on many televisions’ YouTube page and other online media platforms.
The governor was purportedly wand
warning politicians against election malpractice when he declared that any politicians planning to rig elections should first of all write their will. “I have heard that some people around him say oh, they must take over this state, they must write results but the only advice I have for them is that if they truly want to write results, they should write something else before that time.
“You know what it is? Their will,” Otti said.
He was reportedly responding to a question about recent remarks credited to the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, who said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) would take over Abia in 2027. This is indeed the height of hypocrisy stinking in the political nostrils of the country, coming from the lone governor of the Labour Party which like the military came forward to entrench a correctional “regime” if it were elected.
Imagine what would happen. May be the social media or Internet would have caught fire by now if such was coming from the ruling APC governor or politician, or that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) or even African Democratic Congress (ADC). However, the death threat from Otti to perceived political opponents has received deafening silence from the corrective Obedient Movement or LP because it is from their own so there is nothing wrong with.
Even their leader, the 2023 presidential candidate of the LP and former Governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi, joined in the spiral of silence though one expects that he will also come out to tell Otti the only governor that this not the leadership model from China and other countries he has been advocating for it to be adopted in Nigeria. One cannot tell whether Otti’s remarks are in consonance with the China, Indonesia, India and even Egypt model on which Obi thinks Nigeria should be governed for the country to get better?
Though one is not here to launder the image of Deputy Speaker Kalu but his mere comments like every other politician pushing for his party, the APC, to take over the reigns of power in Abia attracted fire and brimstone from the LP’s Abia governor. Kalu was quoted to have said: “The APC will take over this state. And you know why? It is so that what is given from Abuja will get to your ward. We are not going to take over this state by force. We are going to use the vote of the masses.”
The governor while replying Kalu through his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ferdinand Ekeoma, said: “For now, what he (Kalu) is displaying is ignorance and rascality, boasting about 2027 while making incoherent, false claims against the government…”
Still not satisfied or may be his real intention were not communicated effectively by his spokesperson, Otti came out himself to declare that anyone planning to rig election or impliedly take over Abia should write “his will” as such a person would die! This is indeed a reckless statement from someone holding an important office as that of a governor by the virtue of which made him a chief security officer.
Without dwelling much on that as the security agencies know what to do if they so wish the surprising thing again is that Obedient family see nothing wrong with them provided it is coming from their only governor. While Otti and his people in the Labour Party enjoy freedom of speech guaranteed under the constitution, they should as well be reminded that the freedom comes with responsibility and where one’s freedom ends, another person’s own begins.
Also, the work of the opposition and its leaders such as Governor Otti in a democracy is to provide constructive criticism and lead conversation for deepening process and engendering good governance and not issuing threats to opponents lives. The Obedients who still live in the illusion that their candidate, Obi, won the 2023 presidential election and are upbeat that he would win the 2027 general election should have come out to condemn what Otti said because there are institutions to handle issues of election malpractices and not an individual issuing such weighty threat.
The silence they exhibited and that of their leader left what the country would have turned to if the party took over power at the centre or what it will look like if peradventure LP wins can be best imagined.
Mr. Agunaechemba, a public affairs commentator, writes from Arochukwu, Abia State
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Ike Agunaechemba It was one of Nigeria’s living statesman, former President Goodluck, who said: “…my ambition, and indeed the ambition of anybody, is not worth the blood of any Nigerian.
