Ex-banker and Abia State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant, ALEX OTTI, discusses with Editor, Politics/Features EMEKA ALEX DURU, his agenda for repositioning the state, if elected to office.
Whatever it is that would make a chief executive of a relatively sure-footed bank, who had just earned a renewed mandate, to quit the cosy office for Nigeria’s unpredictable political turf must be a strong pull, indeed.
This, in a way, is the story of former Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Diamond Bank, Dr. Alex Otti, who, penultimate week, took the unusual step and threw his hat into the ring for Abia State governorship contest.
Otti, by that move, laid to rest months of speculations about his political future and alignment.
Before his resignation from his bank job, there were insinuations that he had been weighing the options of political engagement. On many occasions when he had been confronted with the speculations, however, he had not been direct in answering the question, until his recent outing, perhaps, after consultations with Abians and other relevant stakeholders.
In an encounter with our reporter, the former bank chief expressed his intention to run on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to take over from Governor Theodore Orji in 2015.
Though relatively new in the game, he appeared to have done his homework for the titanic battle ahead.
The zoning principle that appears to be the fad among politicians, is a major issue that many fear that may work against his aspiration. Among some indigenes and stakeholders, the call for powershift to Abia South, which is predominantly inhabited by the Ngwa, has been strident. Otti, an Ngwa man, incidentally, has his council of birth, lumped among those in Abia Central. Thus, his birth place, which, ordinarily, should have boosted his aspiration, on the surface, seems to be an issue he has to contend with.
And he is doing so squarely. He, for instance, spurns at the principle, not only in the state but anywhere it exists, insisting that “zoning of political positions in the country must be condemned because it brings problems, confusion, and does not serve any purpose politically to the governed”.
The clamour for zoning, he lectures, has brought underdevelopment more than the needed development to the country because the best man for the job may never emerge through it.
His words: “I understand zoning, but I don’t believe in it because it causes problem rather than solving it. Abia South Senatorial District has seven local government areas. So how do you decide the one to produce the candidate? In the favoured local government area that the position is zoned to, how do you decide the particular community to produce the candidate? In the community, how do you decide the family that would produce the candidate? So you see that zoning causes confusion, instead of finding solution to the myriad problems we have in the country.”
What, rather, matters to him is the ability to deliver.
Service to Abia, according to Otti, is the force driving his aspiration and not an exercise in personal enrichment.
He said: “I resigned as a result of the pressure mounted on me. Those having the assumption that politicians go to Government House to enrich their pockets must have a rethink. Mine is different because I have strategies that will take the state to another level. I promise to bring unprecedented transformation to the state just like I did in Diamond Bank.”
Repositioning Aba, the commercial nerve of the state, as well as other areas, is among the agenda close to his heart.
He disclosed that international businessmen, particularly the chief executive officer of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), had indicated interest in developing Aba (and other areas of the state) and make it an international commercial hub.
“We are ready to develop the state by situating various manufacturing companies and building industrial parks in Aba to make the city compatible and competitive among other commercial cities in the world. This is one of the ways China became great, through industrial parks,” said Otti.
His blueprint also covers other communities and senatorial districts in the state.
The former bank chief lauded the present Abia Government under Orji for arresting the earlier disturbing security situation in the state, pledging to consolidate on the achievements in this regard.
He added that plans were afoot to develop Abia, which he described as a two-city state of Umuahia and Aba, by extending economic activities to other towns.
“We are going to run the state like business, and not to depend on federal allocation and crude oil which market is on the decline. There are a lot to do to aggressively bring development to the state, coupled with its potential. We just need to put our thinking cap on,” he stressed.
Otti’s colleagues in the financial sector agree with him on this, adding that he is not new in turn-around engagement. They recall, for instance, that in his first three years in Diamond Bank, Otti focused on steadying the bank, which, reeling from the effect of the global financial crises of 2008/2009, had declined in size, and lost market share to competition.
Does Otti have any agenda for the youth and women in the event of his emergence as governor? He answered in the affirmative, stressing that there is no how he can go about re-engineering the state without carrying such critical segments along. “I have huge plans for the women, youths, and girl-child education among others,” he enthused.
Otti says he is not afraid of other big names within his party being touted for the office. In fact, for him, as it is said, the more, the merrier. He, curiously, looks beyond picking his party’s ticket, expressing optimism in winning the governorship position of the state. “If I wasn’t sure or ready, I wouldn’t have resigned as the managing director of the bank,” he said.
But he is not a typical politician; rather, a professional banker, who had spent a good part of his life in the banking hall. How then would he make it in the new engagement? Politics, he says, is not mystery as some politicians make it look, arguing that most of the people in the vocation did not study political science in the university. More so, he says, with successful navigation of boardroom politics while in the bank, sailing through the tide in the outer space would not pose much problem.
“I have dealt with boardroom politics. If you have dealt with boardroom politics, you can cope with ‘public’ politics,” he assures.
He may, perhaps, have a point. With a rewarding career in banking that spanned 25 years, capped with chairmanship of Committee of Bank CEOs in Nigeria, Otti must have weathered through the murky pools of industry politics, successfully. Whether he would post similar feats in soap-box politics remains a different ball game. But he is already in the game and does not intend to look back.
Commentators are agreed that Otti is a good material, adding, however, that the controversy surrounding the zone he wants to represent may pose a strong challenge to his interest.
