The Vice Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party and acting Publicity Secretary in Abia State, Elder Abraham Amah, on Monday chided the state government for not publicly disclosing the Forensic Audit.
Amah made this disclosure in a press statement obtained by our correspondent, urging Governor Alex Otti, to treat the document indicting former Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, publicly and not as personal property.
PERISCOPE NIGERIA reports that the statement was titled ‘Alex Otti’s Forensic Audit and the impotence of propaganda’.
Amah wondered why the governor chose to disclose the report in United States of America, describing the trip as unproductive.
The statement partly read, “The Abia PDP has keenly observed the dance of the absurd and the incoherence of the Alex Otti government in the whole Abia Forensic audit saga which erupted a few weeks ago in far away United States where Alex Otti had gone to unwittingly demarket Abia in the presence of a few selected ‘yes men’ arranged by his handlers, in the guise of giving a public lecture to probably attract indigenous Foreign Direct Investment, FDI.
“In the the past week since his return from the ill-fated and unproductive trip, Alex Otti and his team have been involved in a rigmarole and technically avoiding the core issues at stake and rather inventing anecdotes to dismember the truth and in the process launder the grievous errors it put itself into. It is laughable, unfortunate and speaks to the insincerity of Alex Otti and his handlers when they dodge the real issues and always resort to name calling whenever the Abia PDP raises questions about the alleged N10b airport money.”
Amah disclosed that in the light of the fire Otti stoked, the Abia PDP demanded that the governor should come clean on following points and shame the Abia PDP and the immediate past governor, Dr. Okezie IKpeazu and the operatives of his government adding “The Abia demands that Alex Otti should treat the Forensic audit report as a public document which was conducted with Abia tax payers money and not Alex Otti’s personal property and publish it in full in the official government gazette and the Abia State Government website as he has published the Abia State government expenditure for the past nine months. Abians are looking at the expenditure and are seeing how their money is being frittered with incoherent and multiple expenditure subheadings. Abains also want to see the full details of the forensic audit so that they can judge the former governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu and the PDP.
“Alex Otti should tell Abians when the forensic audit was conducted and the operatives of the former government who were invited for questioning during the forensic auditing as is required in an audit process, otherwise Abians would simply conclude that Alex Otti made up the farce just to continue to express his deep animus for the PDP and Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu.
“That the bits and pieces of materials published by an an obscure blogger named The Whistler, which cherry picked and indicted the former government based on approval papers sent to the Abia State House of Assembly without presenting corresponding documents which vindicates the former government on those allegations is nothing but an attempt to continue to witch hunt the former government, albeit without success.
“It is incredible that the said company that purportedly received the N10b airport money, Ferotex Construction Ltd, as alleged by Alex Otti is still well and alive and working with the same Alex Otti government as a first rate contractor in at least, four active construction projects, despite being indicted by the same government as a fraudulent company that was used by the former governor to fritter Abia funds. Is Alex Otti telling Abians that he is dealing with a criminal company and why is he being selective in his accusations.”
He added that until Otti is able to answer these questions and provide the full evidence and details of the allegations he made against the former PDP government of Ikpeazu, the Abia PDP would advise Abians to consider him and his government as big jokers who have exhausted their governing ideas and only resort to scapegoating the former government to remain relevant.
“After all, this is not the first time he is taking to the media to peddle lies against the former government and even against himself and Nigerians are already getting used to his lies which always collapse like a pack of cards before him. A catalogue of lies put out to the public by the Alex Otti government in the last nine months makes a laughable mockery of governance, despite all the high powered propaganda paid with Abia money, which he has employed to deceive Nigerians.
“When the Geometric Power Plant was hurriedly launched in Aba, he not only said that he built the power plant in just nine months in office, he also lied that Aba had uninterrupted power supply even when Aba residents were disclaiming his position. In broad daylight, he denied on national television that the former PDP government of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu invested N1.4b in Geometric Power Plant even when the promoter, Prof. Barth Nnaji had written to him officially that he received the N1.4b from the government of Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu as Abia State investment in the project.
“In the far away United States, Alex Otti informed his audience that he had cleared nine years pension arrears even when his Commissioner for Finance had told Abians that he only cleared the 60% balance of the usual 40% he had paid in his nine months in office. When pensioners asked for the balance of the 99 months, he went mute and pensioners are still kicking for their arrears.
“In a manner characteristic of a lawless king, Alex Otti has failed to abide by the laws that govern Abia State by abandoning due process and the Abia Public Procurement Act in awarding contracts without bids and without advertisements, sacking of civil servants against civil service rules, non-payment of staff salaries and continues to present himself as a saint to the undiscerning. It is disturbing that this pattern of lies used as a governing paradigm is capable of eroding the little gains we have made in our nascent democracy.
“Abia PDP calls on Alex Otti to provide the full audit report for Abians to see, otherwise, he should stop peddling and spreading lies and hate against the former governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu and the Abia PDP and concentrate on delivering good governance to the good people of Abia. If he has exhausted his ideas as Abians have seen, he is at liberty to seek ideas from those who know better.
“We also call on the members of our great party to disregard the lies of Alex Otti and always look at his antecedent full of lies before they take him seriously,” Amah added.
