There are mixed feelings over the achievement of governor Alex Otti of Abia State as some critics claim that the acclaimed achievement of the governor only exists on paper.

Governor Otti has been one of reference points not only in the Southeast but throughout the country in terms of infrastructural development and good governance.

Besides, a school of thought has it that the state has never been blessed with good governor until the emergence of Otti.

However, a cross-section of the state claims that the achievement of the Otti’s administration is only felt in the media and on paper.

They also said that there is no transparency in the management of the state finances and projects execution by the Otti-led administration, challenging him to show the location of some of his advertised projects.

Among the projects the people are asking for their locations and evidence of how much was paid to carry them out include, the construction and rehabilitation of public schools with N11 94 billion, construction and rehabilitation of office building at N4.8 billion, construction of infrastructure at N3 billion, research and development at N7.28 billion, capacity building at N3 billion, erosion control at N1 billion, construction of recreational facilities at N6.5 billion among others.

According to Otti’s critics, “We declare that the above projects are non-existence in Abia State. We have searched for these projects with our natural eyes, but couldn’t succeed. Similarly, all our efforts to trace the locations of these multi- billion-naira-manipulated projects in Abia State with the use of world-class Artificial Intelligence(AI) have abysmally failed.

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“It therefore, suggests that only the executor of the projects knows the exact locations he sited them for acclaimed benefit of our people. We, therefore, call on Governor Alex Otti to show us the locations of the above projects he claimed to have implemented with Abia State’s fund.”

Other projects the people are seeking a proof of their executions are the N110m for construction of cocoa factory and Inland Port, the N713m TETFUND financial project aid to Abia State Polytechnic, Aba.

One of those who claimed that the projects don’t have any address is
Emmanuel Egwu, a politician and business man in Umuahia, the state capital.

Speaking in an interview, he said, “The contracts are fictitious,they don’t exist anywhere. If they exist, they have a Commissioner of Work who should explain to Abians where the roads are.

“I put a challenge last month that if any of these roads exists anywhere let them come and take one million naira. I went to some radio stations with the one million naira cheque, I challenged them to come and show us this 108 roads you said you have fixed, up till date nobody has come forward to disapprove that.

“So, we are not fools. All of us worked for this man, campaigned for him, voted for him believing that it’s going to be a new dawn for Abia as he promised but the case is the difference.”

Asked whether he was saying that the projects the government said it has completed don’t exist, Mr. Egwu said, “Get me right, some of these roads exist but he is exaggerating the number of roads he has executed and even in the midst of the number of roads done, do we know the cost implications of these roads.

“I am a tax payer, I reside here in Abia so I am an interested party, I am a stakeholder so we should know the cost implication, the cost involvement of these number of roads he claimed to have built, we don’t have an idea on what amount is being expended on the construction of roads.

“On the construction of 108 projects: During his media parley the governor said he has been able to build or reconstruct 108 roads but some of us say no, these things are fallacy they don’t exist anywhere . If at all you built 108 roads, can we see them,don’t they have names, don’t they have addresses.”

On the Recreation Centers executed by the Otti’s administration, he said what could been seen were mere bus stops.

” He claimed he spent about N4 billion in the name of building Recreation Center/Parks, non of these don’t exist anywhere, however what we are seeing in recent time is bus stops. I don’t know if bus stops should be liken to recreation park.”