By Nnamdi Elekwachi
I didn’t see any official state house release by Bayo Onanuga or another concerning Tinubu’s visit to Abia State last week, though Gov. Otti’s aides announced the presidential visit on their various social media handles. Maybe there was such a release issued by the presidency that I didn’t read, but that is not even the issue.
That Tinubu did not visit Abia to commission or to flag off projects does not in any way vitiate Gov. Otti’s legacy. I do understand that Gov. Otti, who has repeatedly invited Tinubu to the state, might be playing the politics of Sam Mbakwe of old Imo State known for grovelling and weeping before President Shehu Shagari such that he earned the moniker ‘the weeping governor’.
But there was a reason for Mbakwe’s tears. It has reinforced itself in today’s federation and republic.
Nigeria had returned to the second republic in 1979 and the constitution which the Shagari government operated changed the landscape of Nigeria’s fiscal federalism. During the First Republic, for example, states controlled 50% of their revenues and only remitted 20% to the Federal Government as royalty while 30% went to the distributive pool. But during the Second Republic that system ended. In fact, the Federal Government was controlling a significant part of inflows, and could even decide which state got what in terms of projects, infrastructure and what-have-you. So Mbakwe, being in the opposition party, Azikiwe’s NPP, needed to tilt to the centre a little to get some favour.
In the case of Otti, it has been a different ball game because unlike Shagari who even visited Mbakwe’s Imo, including his Aba, Tinubu has shunned visiting Abia after three invitations to commission some projects, including federal roads, that Otti built with state funds. It doesn’t take away anything from Tinubu himself nor does it even diminish Otti. If Otti delivers, he will still win the 2027 election all things being equal. After all, Mbakwe won his re-election regardless of how hard Shagari fought to win more southern states following the ambiguity that surrounded the interpretation of the constitutionally required ‘two-thirds majority of states’ in 1979.
Tinubu himself remains the most unpopular president ever elected in Nigeria’s history, and since the 1999 constitution is almost a replica of the one of 1979, governors like Otti need to tilt to the centre to attract what in the Nigerian parlance is known as ‘federal presence’. But there is an expensive politics to it, especially under Tinubu.
Recently, the polity witnessed governors who hosted Tinubu in their states openly transfer political support and loyalty to him, sometimes at the expense of their various political parties. While some, it is believed, endorsed Tinubu because of their self-interest, others did so out of fear of being publicly prosecuted by either the EFCC or any other anti-corruption agency post-tenure. The fact remains that Tinubu’s political interest is triggering alignments and misalignments in the polity with states falling to his side, reminding one of ‘domino theory’ which gained popularity during the Cold War era.
It is no longer a secret that the APC wants to capture Abia State come 2027. How it will achieve this remains to be seen. Of course the Abia chapter of the party, particularly the faction loyal to Hon. Benjamin Kalu, current deputy speaker of Nigeria’s tenth House of Representatives, is mustering up its arsenals for 2027. While it is not yet clear whether Ben Kalu aspires to occupy the Abia seat of power in the next election or not, Kalu himself had vowed openly that Dr. Alex Otti would be the last non-APC governor in Abia.
What is more, Kalu is building a grassroots network for Tinubu. Recently, young people in Kalu’s Bende, were recruited as volunteers. Kalu named the network the Renewed Hope Partners, RHPs. The mandate of the network, it is believed, is to ensure that the Tinubu project materialises in the state and beyond. Already, ₦500 million mobilisation funds had been disbursed as a war chest to the network; to begin canvassing and expanding Tinubu’s base in the state. Over forty thousand bags of rice were distributed with even more promised.
To Ben Kalu’s faction must be added Orji Uzor Kalu’s followers, under the same APC. Though Orji Uzor Kalu was unrelenting in lauding Otti for his strides in infrastructure, he had vowed like Benjamin Kalu that Tinubu will never get the ‘less than five per cent’ votes he polled in Abia during the state in 2023.
There is a saying among the Igbo that of two things one outweighs. So it is in the two APC camps in Abia State. Of the two Kalu factions, Ben Kalu’s takes the cake.
Rumours and murmurs on the streets are that Kalu’s faction is behind the repeated absence Tinubu keeps registering in Abia with every invitation.
Since Gov. Alex Otti, who quit the APC for the Labour Party, did not trade Abia off like other governors, it would almost amount to naught luring Tinubu with projects, their size, worth and importance notwithstanding.
What is more, Dr. Otti is Peter Obi’s staunchest political ally. Their party, the Labour Party, had trounced and thrashed Tinubu in his Lagos base during the 2023 presidential election, a feat which still unsettles the Lagos APC. Obi and Otti have continued to work together even as their party risks a total collapse under the weight of perennial leadership crisis. Even today, Otti’s elected council chairmen, known as ‘mayors’, contested and won their elections under the support of a little-known party, the Zenith Labour Party, ZLP.
Were politics in Nigeria indeed a game of numbers, then, Tinubu should be needing Otti more than those networks his allies are knocking together in Abia. Otti is large within the people among whom he enjoys some messianic acceptance, because roads, bridges, even fountains, the usual indicators of good governance in Nigeria, are springing up even in long-forgotten areas.
Though one cannot at this point say exactly what the issue is or why the president keeps avoiding Abia, maybe it is beyond the bounds of possibility that Tinubu who openly scoffed at Gov. Otti for using his private home as an official state house would pay him an official visit in his home. Some opposition elements, mostly those who accused Otti of ruling from his house like a monarch, are asking: ‘Where will such an official visit hold?’
The message is that Otti should forget about those presidential visits and focus more on his re-election if he still wants to be there in 2027. He has the people on his side and that is what he can leverage, even though I am of the view that he needs to do better in many aspects. He still needs to weep where need be, but his task is delivering good governance to Abians.
Federal roads are federal roads and will never be less so because a president or government minister did not commission them. Whenever begun, completed, and delivered, people can begin to use them. That is what is what is key and important, not some needless gaudy fanfare; the usual fund-guzzling event that would end up gulping almost the amount with which the project itself was built. There is no guarantee that the Tinubu-led government will refund Otti for building federal roads. That practice was ended by Buhari some years ago.
Ndị Abia should go ahead and enjoy the roads Otti is doing; they can question the cost and the contractor, but not to argue whether the president or his delegate graced the flag-off ceremony or commissioning event. That is puerile.
Thank God for the roads, away with puerilism.
Nnamdi Elekwachi, a public affairs analyst writes from Umuahia, Abia State.
