By Chidinma Omar 


Like a dog returning to its vomit, Abia State Governor  Alex Otti has begun mending fences with former Caretaker Committee chairpersons of the 17 LGAs whom he ushered into office as celebrated 'Mayors', but later dismissed ignominiously.


Dailyledger.ng.com gathered that the Abia Chief Executive is finally reviewing the  fundamental and technical risks ahead his 2027 second ambition.


Having lost the political structure of the Labour Party, LP which provided a platform for his 2023 victory, the former CTC chairpersons if ignored carry sufficient capacity to multiply his woes at the grassroots level.


Thus it was reliably gathered that Otti is eating the humble pie and has begun romancing the billionaire Mayors some of whom made significant financial contributions to his 2023 victory. He ruthlessly shoved them aside to install handpicked stooges during the kangaroo Abia LG elections. 


The Abia Chief Executive who copiously promised to hold LG elections in his campaign promises, but after his election found the FAAC allocations to the LGAs sweeter than honey that he forgot all his high promises. However the Supreme Court verdict on LG Financial Autonomy finally brought him down to earth, but having become addicted to controlling the LG allocations, he needed robot+like stooges who would obey his commands like a zombie and ignore the dictates of the Supreme Court ruling. Thus he tricked his once celebrated Mayors into an embarrassing exit in order to replace him with his stooges.


To worsen matters, he lost the LP structure in this same period


 Reliable sources reveal that the former Mayors vowed to pay  Otti back in his own coin. Having gradually recovered from their  embarrassment and humiliation, some of them were in dialogue with the opposition and Otti’s political enemies to pay him back with his own coins in 2027


Sources disclosed that in a self survival gamble akin to grapping at a straw,  Otti finally opted to compensate the former Mayors, their deputies and councillors with generous severance packages on order  to win back them back to his camp.


Dailyledger.ng.com reports  that earlier, during a dinner with the former Mayors and incumbent chairmen and their deputies at Banquet Hall,  Government House,  Umuahia, last month, Otti promised to accommodate a greater number of them in his government. Which he has done 


Sources close to the former Mayors disclosed  that the governor has also paid the former Mayors N10m (Ten Million Naira) each;  their deputies, N5m;  And the councillors N1m as severance packages 


The beneficiaries expressed shock when the alerts began hitting their accounts, some recall Otti's tight-fistedness and miserly offers to certain political appointees.  They recalled  that he even refused to offer the Mayors  official vehicles  unlike what was obtainable in past administrations