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Alex Otti – former banker who ran for governor three times ends PDP’s 20-year rule in Abia

Alex Otti – former banker who ran for governor three times ends PDP’s 20-year rule in Abia

Alex Otti

After 120 hours of tension and controversy, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday, March 22, 2023, declared Alex Otti of the Labour Party winner of the Saturday, March 19, 2023, gubernatorial election in Abia State.

Professor Nnenna Oti, the state’s Returning Officer and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri, FUTO, announced that Otti polled 175,467 votes to defeat Okechukwu Ahaihwe of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), who was nominated after the death of Professor Uche Ikonne. The Labour Party governorship candidate won 10 out of 17 LGAs to win the race.

The declaration of Otti as Abia’s fourth democratically elected governor, five days after polls ended, was delayed after the results from Obingwa Local Government were recalled for review by the electoral body in Abuja. Amid reports of result manipulation and voter intimidation, INEC reported on Sunday, March 19, 2023, that thugs invaded their office in Obingwa. Obingwa is the home of the incumbent governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, who lost his senatorial bid to Senator Enyinaya Abaribe who left the PDP to join APGA after withdrawing from the PDP’s governorship race.

Labour Party’s victory ends PDP’s 20-year rule in the state. The party came to power in 1999 when Orji Uzor Kalu was elected governor of the state and spent eight years in office. In 2007, Former Governor Theodore Orji who was elected under the platform of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) defected to PDP where he won his re-election in 2011. Ikpeazu succeeded Orji and will be leaving office in May 2023 after eight years in office.

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In 2014, Alex Otti resigned as the Group Managing Director of Diamond Bank Plc, which merged with Access Bank in 2019, and threw his hat into the governorship race under the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA). Though new in the state’s politics, he gained followership for his promise to reform Abia, cut the cost of governance and attract investors to the state. While he maintained a good lead after the 2015 polls ended, he lost to Ikpeazu after Obingwa, Osisioma Ngwa, and Isiala Ngwa were declared inconclusive, and a rerun poll was conducted. Otti also lost to the PDP in 2019, and in 2022 he clinched the Labour Party’s governorship ticket as its flagbearer for the 2023 election.

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