The verbal pugilism between the Abia State Government and the incumbent Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Okezie Kalu, continues to rage after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu failed once again to pay a working visit to the state.
Although the Presidency explained that Tinubu’s visit to Plateau State for the burial of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman’s mother, Lydia Yilwatda Goshwe, caused the eleventh-hour change of the President’s itinerary, the government insisted that it was deliberate.
Tinubu’s failure to show up has, therefore, raised concerns about the anticipated gubernatorial showdown between Kalu and the sole Labour Party (LP) governor, Dr Alex Otti in 2027.
The dust raised by the exchanges between the Abia State Government and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives has refused to settle.
Minister of Works, David Umahi, who represented the President to commission some signature projects completed by Abia State Government, assured the people that “the President has promised to be here in person before the year runs out.”
Umahi commended Otti for the wonderful works he had been doing in the state, stressing that the South-East has never had it so good, but under the renewed hope administration of Tinubu, who, he said, had been making much money available for state governors.
But in his remarks, Kalu expressed dismay that the Abia State government had not been acknowledging the contributions of the Presidency to the infrastructure uplift in the state, even as he told Otti that the Information Commissioner had not been given the Federal Government its due recognition.
Kalu’s sentiments were followed up with a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Levinus Nwabughiogu, in which he called on the President to consider establishing a seaport in the South-East, as well as intervene in the ongoing demolition of property owned by Igbo residents in Lagos State.
Otti, also in his remark, said: “I have no business with Lagos State, and I am not competing with the state. My competition is with China and Dubai. By the time I am done with Aba, Lagos will look like a village. He noted that while some state governments are busy pulling down shops and frustrating traders, “my vision is to transform Aba into Africa’s Dubai — a global hub for commerce, innovation, and manufacturing.”
However, seething at the failed presidential visit and the Deputy Speaker’s tirades, the governor’s political playmaker, Dannie Ubani, described the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration of Tinubu as the worst democratic nightmare Ndi Igbo have had since 1999.
In a post on his Facebook page, Ubani noted that “under the ‘messianic’ Tinubu administration, the entire five South-Eastern states have only five ministers, while a particular state in South-West has four.”
Ubani, while demanding that the Deputy Speaker and other defenders of the President should present any meaningful favour or project the Federal Government has initiated in the region, dismissed Kalu’s call on Abia State government media officers to give credit where credit is due as self-serving.
Meanwhile, sources within the Abia State chapter of the APC disclosed that the Deputy Speaker had been tipped to contest the gubernatorial poll following Otti’s refusal to join the party ahead of the 2027 general election.
