Alex Otti: Tinubu’s Policies Will Heal Nigeria

● Says road under construction will ease movement between Abia and Rivers

By PHC Telegraph

“Anyone that understands how the economy works will agree that it is a very difficult challenge” to solve the nation’s economic problems, Governor Alex Otti of Abia State said after he met one-on-one with the Nigerian President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Otti, a graduate of the University of Port Harcourt and classmate of Rotimi Amaechi seen in Rivers circles as a big time ‘Port Harcourt boy’ traveled all the way to Lagos where the President is holidaying.

“So it is not going to be easy immediately”, Otti who rose to be a proficient banker said while examining the state of the nation and the impact that “Tinubunomics” is having on the economy.

“I believe that if we are patient and go through the policies without compromising that, over time things will turn around,” Otti firmly remarked.

Many think Otti’s trip to Lagos to visit the president might ruffle feathers inside the Labour Party.

Peter Obi, the party’s presidential candidate who is fast turning into a fiery opposition figure in the country has been relentless in terms of the ferocious attacks that he has continuously unleashed against the person of the president and the policies that he and members of his team are conceiving to salvage the economy since after he was declared the winner of the 2023 elections.

Some in the polity reckon Otti’s visit to Lagos, and his understanding of the policies that the federal government is pursuing at this point is most likely in the long run to lead to serious disaffection between the Abia Governor Otti and the presidential candidate of the Labour Party.

Acknowledging the effort of the Tinubu administration in stabilizing the economy, Otti noted that the President has brought sound economic policies to the table.

“Those policies are good but they come with their negative sides. They come with challenges for an economy where over 60 percent of the population are living below the poverty line.

 

“The president has been very courageous, unifying the exchange rate and removing fuel subsidy which had become a scam and costing the nation a lot of money,” Otti noted.

“So it is not going to be easy’, the Abia Governor explained, emphasizing “things will turn around” If Nigerians support the bid by Tinubu to reposition Nigeria’s poor and sagging economy.

Unlike Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, who has continued at every turn to put down Tinubu’s economic policies, the Abia, State Governor agrees the President “came in at a very difficult time when inflation was close to 30 percent, the national debt almost $40 billion, unemployment close to 33.3 percent.”

“The management of the economy at that time was also a bit challenged with almost N34 trillion” printed by the Mohammadu Buhari administration “in what was described as ‘ways and means’.”

But Otti believes in a partnership between the Federal Government and the Abia State Government, saying that partisan politics takes backstage after elections.

 

“Our partnership with the federal government to bring development to the people is at different levels, including through the National Economic Council and the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.

“After elections, politics takes the back seat, and governance takes pre-eminence. All we are doing is for the interest of Nigerians, and the federal government is also supporting us,” Otti stated.

Work at the Abia end of the Port Harcourt- Aba Expressway is proceeding at a fast pace according to information that is filtering in.

Otti is optimistic that the road when completed would facilitate the movement of goods and services between Rivers and Abia States.

Despite hazards posed by the breakdown of the major access route, Rivers people are able to get to the popular Ariara Market in Aba while businessmen and traders from Abia travel in a round about manner to take much needed commodities to markets in Port Harcourt and other semi urban areas of Rivers State.