Governor Otti’s Poor Assumption And Calculation Of Disunity Amongst Leaders Of APC In Abia State Bound To Be His Waterloo.
Monday (Eke) 12-01-2026.
OUR TEAM 1999-2023 is an Association put together by three former Governors that held sway in Abia State from 1999 to 2023. In fact, ex Governors Orji Uzor Kalu, 1999-2007, who is the Leader of the TEAM, T. A. Orji, Ochendo, 2007-2015, and Okezie Ikpeazu, 2015-2023, with all their appointees, Members of the National Assembly from Abia State, Members of Abia State House of Assembly, Local Government Council Chairmen in the State, and their Deputies who served between 1999-2023 constitute membership of OUR TEAM 1999-2023.
By any dint of estimation, the TEAM, which is extensive and, of course, formidable, is all about equitable and good governance in Abia State, and, by extention, Nigeria which is currently ably led by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
Apart from regular or emergency meetings of the TEAM, Annual meetings are held by the Organization. Its first Annual meeting was hosted on Wednesday (Nkwo) 8th January, 2025, at Igbere by its Leader and the Ranking Senator representing Abia-North Senatorial District in the10th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, the Distinguished Senator Orji Uzor Kalu.
In its order of hierarchy, the second Annual Meeting of the TEAM, that was for 2026, was hosted by His Excellency, the Most Distinguished Senator T. A. Orji (Ochendo) on Friday (Orie) 9th January, 2026, at his Umuahia-Ibeku country-home.
As a TEAM which motive is the collective interest of Abia People, it issued a 9-Point Communique which included;
(1) giving unfettered support to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR, and
(2) instituting a law suit to compel the Governor of Abia State, Dr Alexander Otti, to operate the affairs of Abia State from the Government House at Umuahia, as clearly stipulated by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, instead of the current unconstitutional practice of operating the businesses of Government of Abia State from his private residence at Nvosi in Isialangwa-South Local Government Area of the State.
Since after the said 2026 Annual General meeting of OUR TEAM 1999-2023, a video in which Governor Alexander Otti was captured making some derogatory comments about the Communique issued by OUR TEAM 1999-2023 has gone viral.
In the said video, Governor Otti did not debunk the fact that he unlawfully relocated the seat of Power from Umuahia to his private residence in a village where he lives at Nvosi in Isialangwa-South Local Government Area of the State. Otti did not consider that unconstitutional action of his worth mentioning. No doubt, he does not only believe that Umuahia People are inconsequential but also thinks that President Tinubu who had had cause to advise him to allow Umuahia remain as the Seat of Power has no power, whatsoever, to advise him on where to run his Government from.
What, rather, was of importance to Governor Otti was the expression of his belief that no matter where and how he chooses to govern Abia State, his dream of a second term in 2027 ‘can not be thwarted because, in his thoughts, Leaders of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia State can not come together as a united front’.
By the above parochial calculation, Otti has only betrayed his naivety, forgetting that Politics is very dynamic, and that the APC Leaders he thinks can not come together know better than him that there is no permanent enemy or friend in Politics but permanent interest.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, currently the Secretary of OUR TEAM 1999-2023, and also Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
