The Abia State Governor-elect, Alex Otti, has said he will replicate the style of governance deployed by Peter Obi when he was governor of Anambra state between 2006 and 2014.
He said the decision to adopt Obi’s governance model is because of how effective it’s in cutting cost of governance.
Obi is the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate in the just concluded poll.
Obi is renowned for his frugal disposition especially as it regards the management of public funds. He’s also a staunch advocate for cutting cost of governance and doing away with duplicity that amounts to wastage in government.
“My presidential candidate did very well in Anambra State because he reined in the cost of governance,” Otti said Thursday during a live interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“And it’s the same kind of model that we are going to run in Abia. There are only so many jobs you can create in the public sector.”
Otti, who on Wednesday was declared winner held that appointing 12,000 personal assistants and special assistants who “basically don’t have an office” creates a problem for oneself.
On the issue of replenishing the state coffers, he said appealed to those who had amassed public funds to return it, arguing that the resources and time required to pursue looters were not worth it.
“I know that the enormity of work that is required in Abia is a lot and I wouldn’t want distractions. I’ve stayed there long enough to know that whenever you start a probe, you begin to get distracted,” the governor-elect said.
According to him, by the time one is done with the probe and there is a report, which would have indicted a lot of people, “the process now begins”.
That process, he said, would then go to the High Court, then the Court of Appeal before ending up at the Supreme Court.
“If you have taken any money, and it’s still with you, return it. But I’m actually not going to dissipate energy chasing real or imagined criminals, real or imagined looters, but I will not allow corruption,” Otti said.
“I will not allow our money to be shared. I’ll like our money to be used to work for our people
