Gov Otti accepts using Sen Kalu’s blueprint to develop Aba, Abia
Governor Alex Otti of Abia State said he stands on his earlier statement crediting Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s development blueprint as the foundation for the ongoing infrastructural transformation in Aba and other parts of the state.
He said Senator Kaku introduced a workable model for governance during his tenure as governor of Abia State from 1999 to 2007.
Fielding questions from journalists in Aba during his monthly media parley tagged “Gov. Alex Otti Speaks to Abians”, held at the Government House, Umuahia, the Governor said he was not quoted out of context.
“Sometimes when news is reported, it’s taken out of context,” Otti began. “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, Okezie Ikpeazu ) Governor Otti replied “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).
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“But anyway, that’s the context under which the statement was made, and it is a correct statement.”
Governor Otti reiterated his resolve to begin the state’s development strategy from Aba which he said was hinged on 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 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 is 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.
