Socio-Economic Implications Of Governor Alexander Otti’s Disdain For State Independent Electoral Wards In Abia State.
Wednesday (Eke) 16-07-2025.
Delineation of Constituencies, including Electoral Wards, is one of the ways through which Governments enhance democracy in the grassroots, create jobs, and, by so doing, address challenges of Youth unemployment and its attendant restiveness.
In his determination to make sure Youths of Abia State were engaged in all Sectors of the State’s economy, Distinguished Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, as Governor of Abia State, 1999-2007, opened up a lot of productive employment spaces. Many Youths were employed in both Civil and Public Services of the State.
To create more opportunities for meaningful engagement of Abia Youths, Governor Orji Uzor Kalu widened the State’s political landscape. Following due process, his Government drafted an Executive Bill for the creation of Abia State Independent Electoral Commission, ABSIEC, which was appropriately passed into Law by Abia State House of Assembly in. The inaugural Board of ABSIEC was commissioned on 8th May, 2001.
It is important to state that Sections 197, 198 and 199 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as amended, provide for the establishment and functionality of States’ Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECS. So, the SIECS are creations of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. By no way are they alien to Nigeria’s Constitution.
By their constitutional creation and authority, the SIECS are empowered to delineate Wards in Local Government Areas in their respective States.
Based on the powers conferred on AbIa State Independent Electoral Commission, ABSIEC, the Commission duly advertised for interested geographical sections in the State to apply for apply for the creation of State Electoral Wards. The Commission stipulated requirements, including monetary payments, that interested groups should meet before they could have the Wards they have applied for.
At the end of the process, ABSIEC was, having followed due process, able to raise the number of Electoral Wards in the State, for purposes of conduct of elections into Local Government Councils, from 184 to 293, making a plus difference of 109 Wards.
The additional 109 Wards were a quantifiable evidence of job creation and source of living for, not only the additional 109 Councillors but certainly had a multiplier effect on the local economy where the 109 Councillors lived and operated. Two Governors that came after Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, Governors T A Orji, Ochendo, and Okezie Victor Ikpeazu, Ph.D, knowing that Government is a continuum, made use of the ABSIEC Wards.
It is a sad, irritating, repulsive, undemocratic and retrogressive commentary that Governor Alexander Otti unilaterally rejected the legitimate existence of 109 Electoral Wards created by the force of constitutionality and law in Abia State. This act can only be the behavioural end product of extreme dictatorship, signifying the thoughts of a maximum Ruler who has no respect for the Rule of Law.
It is devastatingly ironic that while a State like Lagos used her 20 Constitutionally-created Local Government Council Areas, and 37 Local Council Development Areas which it had created in her July 12, 2025 Local Government Elections, Governor Alexander Otti arbitrarily, with every degree of insensitivity, shot doors of contributory engagement against 109 ABSIEC Wards in Abia State.
Unfortunately in Abia State, there is a large population that is ignorant of the Law, and, so, nonchalant even when it is obvious their rights are being trampled upon. If it were in South-West of Nigeria, Lawyers and Civil Society Organizations would since have headed to the Courts of Law to challenge this unlawful obscenity and democratic aberration.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and the Executive Director, Centre for Equity and Eradication of Rural Poverty.
