Abia govt reacts to fake report of Otti’s defection to APC

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The Abia State Government has dismissed a report that Governor Alex Otti has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) as fake.

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A Facebook page published the fake article on 19 October, claiming that Mr Otti announced at a press conference in Umuahia that day that he had defected from the Labour Party (LP) to the ruling APC.

The fake article quoted the governor as saying, “I have seen the direction the APC is heading, and I strongly believe the party means well for Nigeria and for our people, Ndi-Igbo.”

A day after it was published, the Abia State Government issued a statement advising the public to disregard it.

“The report is nothing but a fabrication by political propagandists who are unsettled by the governor’s consistent delivery of good governance and his growing popularity across party lines. The baseless publication is a desperate attempt to distract the people of Abia and sow seeds of confusion where none exists,” Okey Kanu, the commissioner for information in Abia, said in the statement.

“Governor Alex Otti remains a committed and proud member of the Labour Party, the platform under which the good people of Abia overwhelmingly elected him to serve. His focus remains unshaken, to rebuild Abia, restore accountability, and deliver the dividends of democracy to every citizen of the state.”

Mr Kalu said Governor Otti recently told the people of Abia that his focus was on service to humanity and the transformation of Abia, not on “political permutations or defections.”

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The Facebook page that published the fake article later published an update stating that Mr Otti had “shut down the defection rumour”.

Mr Otti and Peter Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, are the two most prominent politicians in the LP. The party was relatively unknown in Nigerian politics until Mr Obi became its presidential candidate in the 2023 election.

Governors and several politicians from Nigeria’s main opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have been defecting to the APC lately, raising concerns that the country may become a one-party state.

Governor Douye Diri of Bayelsa State resigned from the PDP on 15 October. Although he has yet to name the party he will join, many believe he will join the APC.

Mr Diri was one of the last remaining PDP governors in Nigeria’s South-south region after his counterpart in Akwa Ibom State, Umo Eno, defected from the party to the APC in June.

READ ALSO: Gov Otti’s Green Vision: Transforming waste into wealth in Abia

Siminalayi Fubara of Rivers State is now the only remaining PDP governor in the region.

Mr Diri’s resignation from the PDP further depleted the number of PDP governors in Nigeria to eight.

Rivers, Adamawa, Bauchi, Osun, Oyo, Plateau, Taraba, and Zamfara are states where the governors are PDP members.

The ruling APC currently controls 24 states in Nigeria, and may have more governors join it.

If Mr Diri eventually moves to the APC, the ruling party would control five out of the six states in the South-South.

Most governors who have defected from the PDP said they made the decision because of the party’s protracted leadership crisis.