Eke O. Ako        Gov Alex Otti 


Ten months after forming his bogus Transition Council, which he alleged to have comprised of people he described as technocrats and industry leaders, Governor Alex Otti  has continued to launch different governing councils to help him develop a mega Abia from almost nothing.


As I was busy celebrating my birthday yesterday, Governor Otti was busy launching another of his many councils - this time what he calls Abia Global Economic Council.


The most worrying question for me today as a concerned Abian who is keenly watching the trajectory of his government is that I do not see a strategic direction or a defined direction of travel.


May I  humbly ask Gov Otti 'what happened to the lavish recommendations or road map developed by the so-called Transition Council? 


What happened to his manifesto which he regularly told us during the campaigns that he wrote by himself, and was a sure plug for all Abia's problems? I joined one of his Zoom sessions then, where he said that none of his fellow governorship aspirants wrote their manifesto. He stated that his was ready for deployment on May 29th, 2023.


Has he dropped  his own personally developed road map and the road map developed by the so-called technocrats of the Transition Council?


Does he need these Professors and PhD holders to advise him that he should not spend 30% of Abia's funds on himself? Does he need them to tell him that the over N25bn earned by Abia LGAs should be used to work in the LGAs?


His Government so far has been characterised by regular announcement of one council or the other, or holding several low value adding events, where he regularly reels out 50-paragraph/point long essays , which have told us nothing, apart from apportioning blames to his predecessors, especially Ikpeazu, and continuous promises of 'HELP HAS COME', which Abia retirees and most Abians are yet to see.


On paper, this newly launched council looks good; however, a critical review of this Council which boasts of big names, shows that most of the big Members have no history of building sustainably successful local economies or businesses. It is also surprising that some of those big names have been named in his earlier councils.


Anyone with an atom of strategic understanding will tell you that Governor Alex C. Otti appears to be building castles in the air. It seems to me that he wants to build a 24th century society on a 17th century foundation. His big ideas are appear to be premised on some outdated model, where academic qualifications or leadership of bureaucratic public sector organisations confers individuals the competence required to transform a failed local economy into a big modern society overnight.


A deep dive into the members of this new economic team will reveal that most of them were heads of global bureaucratic organisations with established structures and funding. Very few of them have recorded any success in the rigours of developing local economies. 


I may be wrong, but it is looking likely to me that Mr Otti will waste his first tenure attempting to build a impracticable new Abia, because of his failure to accept the present realities and build his strategies on this reality.


Only time will tell. I wish him well, but the signs I'm seeing are showing that he is busy setting himself up for failure.


You have to count 1 before 10.


Eke O. Ako is a Strategic Management Consultant