Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has reaffirmed his earlier position on adopting Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s template for developing Aba, the commercial centre of Abia State.
Otti said that the foundation for the ongoing infrastructure transformation in Aba and other parts of the state was rooted in the model introduced by Kalu during his tenure as Governor from 1999 to 2007.
Fielding questions from journalists in Abia state on Thursday evening during his monthly media parley tagged “Gov. Alex Otti Speaks to Abians”, held at the Government House, Umuahia, the Governor addressed a question from Ifeanyi Okali of ABN TV seeking clarifications on the viral remarks which the Governor emphasised were factual even though they were quoted out of context by some media outlets.
Read the governor’s response: “Sometimes when news is reported, it’s taken out of context. If you understand the context of that statement, what I said was that when former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu started in 1999, he faced Aba and tried to build a lot of roads in that place.
“The idea is that if you get Aba right, then the rest of the state can easily be fixed. Because Aba is a place that can generate enough internally generated revenue to help and support and fix other parts of the state and that is exactly what we are doing.”
On whether he deliberately ignored the templates of the two succeeding former governors (Senator Theodore Orji and Okezie Ikpeazu), Governor Otti replied with humorously: “when the press ask about the template about the other two former Governors, I am sure that you are going somewhere and I will let you land. And it’s for me to choose what template I want to choose: so when you become Governor, you pick all of them and put them together (laughs).”
Governor Otti reinforced his idea to begin his the state’s development strategy from Aba.
He said the attraction was the potential for huge internal revenue generation.
He said: “The whole idea is that you start from where you can generate revenue, and from there you proceed to the hinterlands. And I’m sure that you can see that it’s exactly what we are doing. When we came, we started with Aba, we faced it, and now today we are virtually in every local government in that state.”
This is not the first time Governor Otti has openly praised Kalu’s development vision. During a courtesy visit on June 8, 2025, Otti said: “Government and/or governance is a continuum; it can be broken, but you must go back and recover it.”
He acknowledged that Senator Kalu did an “excellent job” as governor and that his administration was building on that foundation.
“I can assure you: that template is not wrong. You fix the place that generates the revenue; the revenue will come, and you use it to fix other places,” he said.
Otti also recounted his personal connection to the Kalu administration, stating: “My mother and others from her generation remember well how Kalu’s leadership positively impacted various sectors in Abia, including Education, Agriculture, Road Infrastructure, and Commerce.”
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