Candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, in the 2015 governorship election in Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti, has denied speculation that he is the brain behind the tax forgery suit instituted against Governor Okezie Ikpeazu by a gubernatorial aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Friday Nwosu.
Mr. Otti contested and lost the April 11 governorship poll to Mr. Ikpeazu of the PDP.
The APGA candidate made the denial in reaction to a recent statement credited to the immediate past governor of the state now senator, Theodore Orji, that the tax forgery case against the incumbent was his (Otti’s) handiwork.
In a press statement issued by his media aide, Ferdinand Ekeoma at the weekend, Mr. Otti said the comment was the “height of irresponsibility from a grand-father”.
It read in part: “The former Governor’s recent insinuation that Chief Friday Nwosu, a PDP gubernatorial aspirant in the last party primaries is being sponsored in his tax forgery case against Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu and his subsequent kindergarten boasts that the ‘sponsors would fail the way they failed at the election tribunal’ is not only an irritating outburst unbecom¬ing of a grand-father, but the insulting swagger with which he made his ridiculous utterances directed at Dr. Alex Otti brought back to memory of Ndi Abia the calamity of his inglorious tenure; it indeed bore the man’s trademark of political tragic comedy”.
“If the man wasn’t a failed governor and now an accidental lawmaker, he would have used the gathering to reflect on his achievements as governor, if any, and at the same time inform those present of his giant strides as a lawmaker. But because he has no good account of stewardship to render, he chose to once again consolidate on the politics of pettiness, deceit, disinformation and hatred which he and his likes instituted in Abia”.
The statement reminded Senator Orji that Otti is not in the same party with the sponsor of the alleged forgery suit.
“May we remind this grandfather that the matter at hand is about one PDP aspirant against another, and predates the election. In case they have forgotten, Otti belongs to another party”.
