“Our attention has been drawn to a recent newspaper report credited to the factional candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance for the 2015 governorship election in Abia State, Mazi Alex Otti, over the suspension of five traditional rulers in the state for alleged security breaches.
“Ordinarily, we shouldn’t and indeed wouldn’t have bothered to honour Otti with a response since that is within the schedule of certain state functionaries.
“However, we are constrained to clarify some issues that bother on the development because of Otti’s futile attempt to whip up sentiment by linking the action of government as aimed to give an edge to the governorship project of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu.
“Whereas we are not speaking for the state government, it is a common knowledge that the issues that led to the suspension of the affected royal fathers bordered on serious security breaches and abuse of their positions as royal fathers, an action capable of undermining the pervading peaceful atmosphere in the state. No responsible government could have folded its arms and watch events escalate out of control in those domains. More so when there were already plethora of petitions against the royal fathers by their subjects and town unions.
“By his latest recourse to impotent propaganda, cheap lies and outright misinformation that the royal fathers were axed because of their support to his ambition, Otti has further confirmed his jaundiced knowledge of the real issues in governance since, to him, everything must have a political undertone.
“This is not the first time erring royal fathers have been disciplined by the appropriate authorities, especially when their infractions border on security lives and properties of their subjects. We wonder why it is now that Otti would be insinuating that the action of government had anything to do with his day-dream of becoming a governor in Abia State.
“It is on record that in its determination to bring sanity to the traditional institution, PDP-led government in Abia State has in the past sanctioned traditional rulers whose acts were found to be at variance with the high demands of their elevated positions. This is also not to isolate the fact that the traditional institution has never had it so good in terms of respect and recognition under the present administration which rescued it from a deliberate Balkanization it experienced in the past.
“We, therefore, want to tell Mr. Otti to continue to search for a veritable campaign issue that can hold water instead of constant recourse to mendacious propaganda that has only amounted to fire without heat. Abia people know their own”.
Signed:
Kingsley Emereuwa.
(Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu Governorship Campaign Organisation).
