Governorship candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), in the 2015 and 2019 elections in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has berated Governor Okezie Ikpeazu over his remarks on the yet to be completed flyover project located at Osisioma junction on the Enugu –Port Harcourt expressway.
Ikpeazu had while featuring in a local radio programme in Aba, in what appeared like a joke, asked what concerns the people with the flyover project and that those who don’t have cars are mostly the ones inquiring after the flyover.
The Governor said; “Does the flyover concern you people? Were you people the ones that asked me to build the Flyover? Was I not the one that took the decision to build it? It has now moved from center table to flyover. I was the one that woke up, designed my thing, brought White people and asked them to build the flyover for me, and I have been paying them according to my income and they have been doing it. You can see that it’s stretching, and it’s at stone base level, and you people keep asking me about flyover. Some of the people that are asking me about the flyover don’t even have cars. Are they going to climb the flyover on foot? What concerns them with flyover?
But in a statement signed by his Media Aide, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma, Otti described the Governor’s reaction as poor, uncouth, rude, thoughtless, disrespectful and demeaning.
Otti said; “You displayed a stone age mien of an autocratic emperor. You gave the impression that Abia is your personal estate that can be administered as it pleases you, without any objection from any corner. You forgot that the resources being used to execute the flyover project belong to Abians, hence their right to ask questions and demand answers.
“You gave the impression that the outrageously costly flyover project which has been going at a snail speed for over six years is your personal project being constructed by your personal resources which no one should question. But we know that is not the case. Yes, the people may not have freely chosen you to govern them, but the fact that you preside over their affairs as governor and superintend over the management of their resources, confers on them the right to demand good governance, and care in the management of their resources.
The ex -bank chief alleged that Ikpeazu had demeaned Abians who do not have cars, stressing that lack of ownership of cars should not take away their democratic rights to demand for the completion of the flyover project.
He further urged the Governor to ensure that every project he is executing bears the highest quality for his successor not to redo jobs that had been paid for.
