The traditional ruler of Ekeoba Ancient Kingdom, Ohuhu, Umuahia North Local Government Area of Abia State, HRM Eze Iheanyichukwu Nwokenna, has stated that the governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, has cleared the backlog of salary, pension and gratuity of Abia workers, adding that if the three immediate past governors of the state from 1999 till 2023, has paid off all the arrays, it would have been very easy for the governor to do more better.
The monarch urged Governor Otti not to be distracted, assuring him that his performance would speak volumes for him ahead of the 2027 general election.
While speaking in Umuahia, on a radio program tagged, “the truth” aired by the Broadcasting Cooperation of Abia State (BCA) Eze Nwokenna decried that: “Governor Alex Otti has cleared the arrays of salary to the best of his knowledge and records available, adding that the governor has started defraying the gratuities.
“It is a gradual process. The governor is not a magician. He promised that he must completely pay up all the gratuity of retired workers. Most of these arrays cleared by the governor were owed by the previous administration and even the Bible says that a worker is entitled to his wages.
“You can’t get the best from your workers if you are not paying them their salaries and wages. The previous administration did the way they wanted, but this governor thought that owing salary is not the best for his administration to go forward and he decided to pay off all the arrays. That shows he wanted his administration to be a very good one. The only magic he adopted is to keep paying them regularly”.
He lamented that within a relatively short period, the current administration has recorded far better achievements than previous ones.
The traditional ruler insisted that Abia State has witnessed massive and unprecedented infrastructural development under Otti in less than three years.
According to him, while criticism is a legitimate part of democracy, it should be constructive rather than misleading.
