ON Sunday, 1st day of June, 2025, stakeholders of Abia All Progressives Congress (APC), gathered at Bende, the home town of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, to induct rented ‘members’ of the party in Abia State.
It was a gathering of mechanical crowd, hurriedly rented from the five states of the South-East by the Abia APC Chairman, Dr. Kingsley Ononogbu, without proper rehearsal just to deceive Mr. President and the APC that he has the capacity to mobilize numbers in Abia State.
Mr. President cannot forget in a hurry that similar Yahoo Plus Format was displayed to him at the Umuahia Township Stadium in the run-up to the 2023 Presidential Election which ended up securing an embarrassing 4% total of Abia votes for Mr. President on the day of the Presidential Election and coming a distant 4th in the State Gubernatorial Election.
In the written speech of Dr. Ononogbu which he was struggling to read out, the upcoming content creator State Chairman of Abia APC, Dr. Kingsley C. Ononogbu, acknowledged and commended the visible strides and achievements of the Executive Governor of Abia State, His Excellency, Dr. Alex Chioma Otti, OFR, while lampooning the former administrations in the State whose kitchen cabinet cabals he is now dining with as his new friends and members in Abia APC, but goofed when he turned 360⁰ to start criticising the People’s Governor for running a people and development oriented ‘One Man-Show’ Government.
The Abia APC State Chairman who is running a fragmented party in the State should focus on bringing the Party’s big wigs in the State together to help Mr. President’s re-election bid than dissipating his time and energy on accusing a performing administration under Governor Otti as lacking accountability, transparency, and proper institutional checks and balances and demarketing himself and his party by publicly angering Abia people with his false narratives of describing the Government as one where the Governor acts simultaneously as Chief Executive, Chief Accountant, and Auditor, sidelining due process and good governance practices.
In his infamous quote which has earned him enough tongue lashing on the streets of Abia State and thumb down on social media spaces, “Abia today is nothing but a one-man show anchored on a well-oiled propaganda machinery”
Silence from the rented crowd and ‘On Your Own’ body language by other APC leaders spoke volumes as he was reading his speech.
It was a speech without applause from the APC leaders present and the rented crowd who were in a hurry to disperse after justifying the day pay with their presence.
Dr. Ononogbu contradicted himself when on one hand he admitted that the Governor has performed well and on the other hand, turned around to question the positive portrayal of Abia State on social media spaces as misleading and disconnected from reality of the citizens.
One can only guess that Dr. Ononogbu was also caught up in the misleading social media achievements of the Governor and his team when he spoke from his head in the opening remarks of his speech before opening the written speech laced with lies and misinformation.
The more Dr. Ononogbu tried to convince his audience, the more he contradicted the same APC leaders he was trying to impress in his speech as he indirectly portrayed them as people who deliberately or blindly joined Governor Otti in deceiving the citizens of Abia State with misleading social media achievements as so many APC leaders in Abia State, including the Deputy Speaker and leader of the Party in the South-East, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Kalu, has in different forums eulogized Governor Otti, praised his leadership style, development strides and towering performance in the State.
Dr. Ononogbu cannot wish away the verdicts of other leaders of his party like Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, Dr. Uche Ogar, Hon. Nkiru Onyejiocha, Prince B. B. Apugo, Chief Emeka Atuma, Senator Chris Adighije, and a host of other APC stalwarts and statesmen who have openly praised Governor Otti’s strides and achievements including Mr. President and Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Dr. Ononogbu must be living in another world and on his own in his contradicting characterisation of the Governor of Abia State who has put Abia on the global map for the right reasons.
He can do a better service to retain his job by advertising the achievements of Mr. President than his public display of confusion and gross ignorance.
Governor Otti cannot be distracted from providing purposeful leadership to Ndi Abia as he remains focused on the development of Abia State and the future of the next generation of Abia Children while Dr. Ononogbu is engrossed in the politics of the next election just to serve his insatiable wants.
At least, the Abia APC could not accuse Governor Otti of not building roads and other infrastructure, paying salaries and pensions, cleaning up the cities and villages, providing access to quality healthcare delivery, improving the quality of public education, protecting the hard working Abians from extortion by revenue touts, turning Abia into an investment destination, reforming the civil service and securing lives and properties.
He is only complaining that the Governor is doing all those things alone without involving the ‘stakeholders’, and flagging off and completing projects he was planning to campaign with in 2027.
One wonders if a Governor under the Labour Party platform is obliged to appoint APC ‘stakeholders’ into his Government or put Dr. Ononogbu on the State payroll as it was done in the past administration’s policy of ‘Share the Money’.
Dr. Ononogbu should concentrate on promoting and marketing his Party and Mr. President than attempting to demarket a Governor whose achievements and performance are visible even to the blind, a Governor who commands an organic followership and whose presence electrifies the streets and communities around the State.
Governor Otti is not running for the office of the President of the Federal Republic and should be left out of the sinking Abia APC Chairman’s inability to mobilize support and votes for Mr. President.
If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result, Dr. Ononogbu cannot on one hand be condemning the past administrations in Abia State who looted and shared public resources among stakeholders and at the same time be criticising Governor Otti for using public funds for public good without sharing it with stakeholders.
. The issue of where Governor Otti is operating from has been decisively addressed and Abians are less interested in where he is operating from but more interested in sustaining the current clean state of the environment in Abia, the massive Roads construction and reconstruction, access to improved public education, improved Waste Management system, Quality Healthcare delivery, Renovation of public buildings, security of lives and properties, payment of salaries and pensions, investment in Agriculture, ease of doing business, Low debt profile, support for the vulnerable, Investment promotion, Linking up communities with Roads, civil service reform and other people oriented policies and programmes.
Governor Alex Otti is accountable to the people of Abia State and not a bunch of attention and relevance seeking politicians who could not muster more than 4% of the total votes of Abians for Mr. President just two years ago.
Dr. Ononogbu’s quest to deceive and mislead Mr. President is dead on arrival as Mr. President can see from the INEC portals, the records of his polling unit, ward, and Local Government Election results in the last Presidential Election.
It is on record that Dr. Ononogbu lost in all the polling units in and around his ward in the last election. As the State Party Chairman of APC, his primary duty is to deliver his polling unit, ward, local government and State to his Party and Mr. President and criticising Governor Otti’s people oriented, development driven, innovative and visionary leadership in Abia State will make him an enemy of Abia people and affect his party and Mr. President’s chances in the State.
Dr. Ononogbu cannot lead the APC to take over the Governorship of Abia State by recycling old wines in new bottle. Abians are at alert and have shined their eyes. They are vigilant and are observing Dr. Ononogbu’s unholy alliance with the same characters who destroyed Abia State for 24 years which is a red flag.
He should better concentrate on winning his polling unit, ward, local government and the State for Mr. President than fighting a lost battle.
The Chairman should be more worried and bothered with his poor outing in the last election and stop being a liability to Mr. President.
A State Party Chairman that could not deliver a single ward to his party in the last election needs to focus on membership drive to assist the Mr. President other than criticizing a Governor that Abians on the mainstreet, elder statesmen, opposition elements including APC stalwarts have been commending and already endorsed for a second term in office to continue the good works.
Dr. Ononogbu should desist from deceiving and misleading Mr. President and focus more on how to get votes for President Tinubu in 2027 and stop lying against Governor Otti who Abians are celebrating in every nooks and crannies of the State.
What should worry and bother Dr. Ononogbu more is the damage and negative image he is creating for the APC by making the Party an anchor or rallying point for those who destroyed Abia State and were rejected and retired by Abians just 2 years ago.
One last word for Abia APC State Chairman, is that Mr. President is interested in doing well in Abia State and spreading falsehood about Governor Otti cannot help you market Mr. President or translate to votes and election victory.
Ctz. UKOHA NJOKU UKOHA, is the Chief Press Secretary to the Executive Governor of Abia State.
