PDP also alleged that the governor had been deliberate about making lives unbearable to residents who have different political inclinations in the state within his first 100 days in office.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused Abia State Governor, Alex Otti of breaching the constitutional provisions on the administration of local government councils by singlehandedly controlling all funds and allocations meant for the 17 councils in the state.
A press statement signed by Hon. Elder Abraham Amah, Abia PDP Vice Chairman/Acting State Publicity Secretary, on Friday, accused Governor Otti of having the seals of all local governments in his possession and using them to access funds from the joint allocation account.
The statement reads: “After 100 days in office, the 17 Local Government Areas are run from the desk of Alex Otti and he does not find it imperative to appoint Local Government Caretaker Committees if he cannot conduct elections within 100 days of assumption of office.
“By law, the local government is a creation of the Nigerian Constitution and Alex Otti should not treat it as an arm of his office.
“All monies from the Joint Allocation Account Committee, JAAC, owned and run by the State and Local Governments are now run single-handedly by Alex Otti.
“Abia PDP also has information that he is in possession of all the 17 seals used by the LGAs to access funds from the Joint Account Allocation Committee, JAAC meaning that he is not only the governor, but also the Chairman of the 17 LGAs in Abia State. If this is not a constitutional aberration, Abia PDP wonders what it is.”
PDP also alleged that the governor had been deliberate about making lives unbearable to residents who have different political inclinations in the state within his first 100 days in office.
“Regrettably, but reassuring to us that Alex Otti has nothing to offer, the speech was nothing more than true-to-type invectives on former governments and a litany of intentions bereft of concrete achievements and looks more like a campaign manifesto.
“Unfortunately, Alex Otti and his team have continuously failed to realise that best intentions do not produce the best outcomes except they are matched with realistic hands-on implementations.
“The 100 days in office of any new government has become a threshold to assess how it has delivered on some key components of its manifesto to the electorate. It is also used as a basis to predict how far the government would go in the completion of the full content of the manifesto by the end of the administration.
“It was first used to herald the enormous productivity of American President Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 during his 100 days in office. In Nigeria, it has also become a template used to measure executive office holders' achievements in their first 100 days in office,” the statement read.
The statement continued: “As a political father figure that he should be to all Abians, Alex Otti has failed to unite Abians and call everyone to be a part of the efforts required to build an Abia that all Abians would be proud of.
“Right on the podium where he took office, Alex Otti devoted 22 of his 46-paragraphed inaugural speech to attack the previous governments after he had rejected all overtures made by the preceding administration to offer a seamless transition to his government.
“He made it clear that he was not going to be a father figure to all Abians and started discriminating against some Abians on account of their political leanings and forgot completely that on oath, he had become the father of all Abians.
“He started his divisive brand of politics by saying that he would not touch anything used by the Ikpeazu administration and has made good that threat. That same divisive politics of Alex Otti was again on full display when he gave a broadcast on the 32nd anniversary of the creation of Abia State and left nobody in doubt that he harbours very deep-seated animosity against anything that is not the Labour Party.”