ABIA GOVT HOUSE:GETTING THE FACTS STRAIGHT

 Ochendo-built Abia Govt House and its critics.

Based on multiple articles, official broadcasts, podcasts and press releases from present aides of Governor Alex Otti, one couldn't help reacting to put the facts straight, especially to help the unsuspecting public, citizens, denizens and other commentators who may inadvertently take these as facts.  

Mr Jones Ike of the National Ambassador Newspapers, an old friend and long practioner in the written words and magazines, on Thisday Newspaper of Saturday, May,10, 2025, in an article titled 'Otti and his critics,` page 23, described the supposedly new government house as a 17century European palace. According to Jones, the structure was built 'when Abia State suffered acute infrastructural deficit.' As he falsely posited, `many citizens questioned the wisdom of committing billions of Naira on a single edifice while roads, schools, hospitals and basic amenities were in shambles.` But note, no evidence of the said criticism was adduced either in print or soft copies.

From all indications, Jones was complacent in Abuja between 2007 and 2015 when Ochendo held sway and unleashed massive infrastructural developments and I can name names. The international Conference Center, The present twin tower of workers secretariat, The E-library, The Asubeb House, and JAAC House, were all Legacy projects of Ochendo. The blue roofed school buildings and new health centres littered in all the wards of Abia were cynosures. Not these alone, The Abia Diagnostic and Specialist Hospitals in three centres commissioned by Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, then Minister of Health, The earlier mentioned International Conference Center that Labaran Maku, Federal Minister of Information and National Orientation Agency saw as fit enough to compete with the ones in South Africa, and the overwhelming projects discovered during his Good Governance tour of Abia, may not be known to Jones. These are same with the multiple car gifts to youths as empowerment components. Unknown too are the drastic security policy decisions that made kidnapping a capital offence and now borrowed by other states which ended kidnapping in Aba and Ukwa areas, may not be known to Jones Ike. The Osinulor influenced Gender policy that had the highest number of female legislators since ever in the Abia House of Assembly, may not mean anything to him as well.These are just to mention a few for lack of space.

The Abia State Government House that Ike and the commissioner for information Prince kanu were denigrating is a well designed structure to befit Abia as the first state in Nigeria. Citing it as a seventeen century palace was inadvertently praising the place. Let me remind him that the present 10 downing street of United kingdom, the residence and office of the British Prime Minister is of the those centuries. The White House where the American president lives today and the Elysee Palace where the leader of France lives were built in those Centuries and are all still in use, attracting tourists and many important decisions taken in them. Thank God that they didn't claim that it was structurally defective. 

The comments that it is not habitable and all smacks of criticisms and possibly calling a dog a bad name to hang it. The new government house building passed through scrutinies of Ministry of works and Housing of Abia that are still engaged in superintending Abia projects all over. 

The government's decision to convert it to a multi star hotel confirms the present administration's phobia to break completedly from the past administrations at all cost, and I ask, which structure will be fresh after being out of use for many years it was started and was left uncompleted. The planned conversion to a modern hotel, is it for rats and rodents? No doubt, it will still be occupied by human beings. They may even be demarketing the proposed hotel as future occupants and clients will suspect it's structural fitness or take it as a haunted house.

 The other trending news is on the newly completed Portharcourt Road Aba. It is a good deed that the present administration has done but the ceaseless pronouncement that it was abandoned by previous administrations is nothing short of blackmail. I could well recall that Ochendo at many times worked on it to make it passable  but didn't go the whole hog because of its classification. Many Abians and Aba residentss may not know that The Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA presides over the the federal highway system and classify roads in Nigeria as trunk A,B,C roads specifically to be built and maintained by the Federal,  State and Local Governments.'ll

 Portharcourt Road Aba falls into category A which is a Federal Road and may not necessarily be fixed by the state government, especially with the lean resources  that dangled between  3 and 4 billion Naira as monthly allocations to Abia then. The continuous coinage of abandoned is deceitful and hints of a smear campaign. If you abhor  hearing about your predecessors, there's a psychological problem. In the affairs of men, there is the sequence of predecessor and successor. Power, especially political power doesn't exist in vacuum. You must start somewhere.   Otti is lucky with improved allocations from the Federation  Account including the Excess Crude and Paris Funds, not excluding a robust IGR. Additionally,  he is a finance guru having been in banks for so many years.   The sky is his limit, let him do his best.

In all, if Abia is good  it is good for all. If it is Otti today, someone else will definitely be there tomorrow. According to Onwughara, a political collosus of blessed memory popularly known as Papa Doris, 'no matter how smooth and broad a road is, it will definitely run into an old one.` 

Governance  is like a relay race, you improve on what is on the ground. If previous administrations finished working on all the roads, what will Otti work on? In Igbo cosmology and value system, a  son should be greater than the father. Abians have given him a mandate to improve and correct, not to grumble and demonize endlessly. According to  Robert Anthony,  a philosopher, when you blame others, you lose your power to change.

Eddie Onuzuruike