Why is Governor Alex Otti’s movement a source of great concern to the Abia State opposition? Why have they become monitoring spirits over Otti? If the Governor is not the major and determining decimal in Abia politics today, as they have canvassed, why are they consumed by a morbid fear over his imaginary movement? Why are they losing sleep and having headache when the the governor has not sneezed? Why has somebody’s silence become a terror and a nightmare for the oppositon?
Indeed, the speculations over the Otti’s possible movement from the Labour Party into the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the attendant noise register a loud soundbite: that the Remnants and Renegades (RR) of the state recognise the overwhelming loyalty and fellowship that he commands among the masses. It is not a loyalty earned by inducement or coarcion but one earned through communion and engagement. Thus, Otti has transformed from an individual personage to an institution of power.
It is today self-evident that the the governor has remained focused on his calling of serving the people whose mandate he holds on trust. He has not, by any stretch of imagination, given a cue as to any possible carpet-crossing or decampment. He has not betrayed any such intention by body movement, spoken words or association. He does not belong to the same political lineage with the latest decampee into APC, Governor Peter Mbah of Enugu State. Both do not share the same political affiliation neither are they honed in the same school of orientation or driven by the same ideology.
So it beats one’s imagination over how the action of PDP’s Mbah could be used to associate the Labour Party’s Otti and even be used to speculate on his possible movement in the same direction. The ideological consitution of the duo are completely unsimilar. Otti represents the affirmation of the possibility of a new Nigeria and a new governance structure, and he has remained consistent with that aspiration.
Should Otti decides to move, it will not be the movement of an individual but the movement of a nation. It is going to be the meditated exodus of the masses of Abia. It is going to be the realignment of the collective will and destiny of the Abia nation. It is going to be the repositioning of the communal dream, the re-setting of the ladder to a new height, and the re-standing on the path to a new communal destination. I am constrained to theorise on this because politics is a game of possibilities.
But, for now, the governor is solidly where he is and delivering meaningful dividends from his platform. He has not declared any intention to move. The masses of Abia are happy and determined to defend their mandate at the polls come 2027. Thus, I see the speculations by the opposition as the work of idle minds. The Englishman says that idle mind is the devil’s workshop. But, the Abia opposition are made up of our brothers and sisters. In the vacuum of their minds, the postulations about Otti’s possible movement becomes the ready preoccupation.
Adindu writes from Umuahia, Abia State capital
