Otti blasts Kalu: Seek help, stop disgracing yourself

Kalu

The Abia State Government, on Monday, came down hard on the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, over his comments that Governor Alex Otti had failed to justify the increased federal allocations accruing to the state since the removal of fuel subsidy by the Federal Government.

Otti, in a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ferdinand Ekeoma, accused Kalu of “advertising his ignorance of basic financial realities,” urging him to seek help rather than “disgrace himself in public.”

Kalu had, while addressing his supporters in Bende on Sunday, vowed that the ruling All Progressives Congress would take over Abia State in 2027, claiming that Otti had underperformed despite receiving more funds from the Federation Account.

“You cannot be getting the kind of money you are getting and you are doing the job that former governors did with less they were getting. The former governors got very less than N4bn or N5bn, and today, Tinubu has released N38bn, N40bn, and you want us, in all fairness, to compare you with the N38bn to N40bn against N5.6bn. The APC will take over this state. And you know why? It is so that what is given from Abuja will get to your ward.

We are not going to take over this state by force. We are going to use the vote of the masses,” Kalu said.

Responding, however, in a statement on Sunday through his aide, Otti said Kalu needed to be schooled that inflation and the weakening naira had reduced the real value of the federal allocation, despite being more.

He said, “As of April 2023, a few days before Governor Alex Otti assumed office, the exchange rate stood at N460 to the dollar. At the present rate of N1,500 to the dollar, N3.2bn today is equivalent to N1bn in 2023. Punch