A former Abia State Commissioner for Trade and Investment, Mr. John Okiyi-Kalu yesterday blamed Governor Alex Otti for allegedly engineering a “hostile handover” process from his predecessor, Okezie Ikpeazu.
Okiyi-Kalu disputed Otti’s claim that Ikpeazu made him experience “a very hostile handover situation.”
The Nation reports that Oti, while inaugurating an Abia State judicial panel of inquiry, attributed his administration’s inability to kick off its plans on May 29, to what he described as a “hostile handover”.
Otti said: “Let me reveal that this administration experienced a very hostile handover situation which made it very difficult for us to hit the ground running on May 29 as we had anticipated.
“We, therefore, assumed office blindly and had to start practically from below ground zero. We are now discovering that the reason for the lack of cooperation (from the last regime) is widespread mischief that might have arisen from some people, or those who might have been given custody of some of our collective assets and welfare.”
But the former commissioner, who served as a member of a joint inauguration and handover committee comprising members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government and incoming Labour Party (LP) government, accused Otti of playing the victim.
Okiyi-Kalu said: “Obviously, he is trying to justify his volte-face during the inauguration of a thinly veiled hostile panel to probe his predecessor after severally stating in public that he was not interested in witch-hunting anyone but would rather focus on substantive governance.
“Try as hard as he may, my take is that the probe is something he has always wanted to do and indeed promised the political cabal that supported him to power, hence the restriction of the terms of reference to only the Ikpeazu years whereas he campaigned on Abia being allegedly looted and misgoverned by successive PDP administrations since 1999.
“As regards hostile handover, I wish to use this piece to highlight and inform members of the public and historians that all facts available to me prove that it was actually Otti that orchestrated a hostile takeover of government.”
According to him, it was “public knowledge that Otti could not wait to be inaugurated before he started issuing statements and performing duties that are constitutionally strictly assigned to an inaugurated Governor of a state.
“As an immediate past member of the state executive, I recall that Governor Ikpeazu did not only direct a seamless handover, the council approved funds for the procurement of vehicles for the incoming administration, and relevant officers were directed to ensure that whatever the new administration needed was provided.”