Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has reaffirmed 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.
Fielding questions from Journalists in Abia state on Thursday evening, during his monthly media parley tagged “Gov. Alex Otti Speaks to Abians”, held at the Government House Umuahia, Otti noted that the model was introduced by Kalu during his tenure as Governor from 1999 to 2007.
The Governor addressed a question from Ifeanyi Okali of ABN TV seeking clarification on the viral remarks which the Governor emphasised were factual and quoted out of context by some media outlets.
He said: “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 with humour;
“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). But anyway, that’s the context under which the statement was made, and it is a correct statement.”
Governor Otti reiterated his idea to begin his state’s development strategy from Aba which he said is as a result of 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, saying: “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”.
Otti also recounted his personal connection to the Kalu administration, stating: “My mother and others from her generation remember well how Kalu’s leadership positively impacted various sectors in Abia, including Education, Agriculture, Road Infrastructure, and Commerce.”
Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is currently serving as Senator representing Abia North Senatorial District, a position he has held since 2019. He is also a former Chief Whip of the 9th Senate and currently chairs the Senate Committee on the South-East Development Commission (SEDC).
Otti’s comments can be described to have drawn inferences to Senator Kalu’s performance as Governor of Abia State from 1999 to 2007, in which he is reported to have tansformed the state’s infrastructure with special focus on Aba and Umuahia.
Kalu constructed the entire road networks in Umuahia, despite it not being in his Senatorial District, along with roads in all 17 LGAs. Landmark roads include.
