Press Release

The attention of Abia State government has been drawn to a trending video that contained a statement made by the House of Representatives Member for Bende Federal Constituency and Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon Benjamin Kalu wherein he made some spurious allegations over the performance of the Alex Otti government and further made infantile comparison between the Governor and his two immediate predecessors.

1. It’s important to lay a foundation premised on empirical data which would serve as a potent tool in curing Kalu’s deep-rooted deficiency of knowledge in financial and economic matters.
   Abia’s 2025 Year to date FAAC allocation (8 months) including LGA, stands at 125 Billion Naira. Meanwhile, if we were to go by Kalu’s false claim of monthly sum of N38billion, it would have stood at N304billion. Should a Deputy Speaker of a Federal Legislature be associated with such bare faced lies?
2. As at April 2023, few days before Governor Alex Otti assumed office, the exchange rate stood at N460 to the dollar. At the present rate of N1,500 to the dollar, N3.2billion today is equivalent of N1billion in 2023. Given that Nigeria is import dependent, the devaluation has seen states gain in nominal terms, but very little in real terms, because key projects are executed with items and equipment whose components are acquired in foreign currency. This is why a road project that was built with N1 billion in 2022 would cost close to N4 billion today. If inflation is factored in at an average rate of 20% per annum, the situation would further exacerbate.
3. Prior to Governor Alex Otti’s assumption of office, minimum wage being paid in Abia was N30,000 and this was only going to those classified as Core Civil Servants. Today, minimum wage stands at between N70,000 to N74,000. Kalu’s limited knowledge of financial matters and the economy obviously deprived him of requisite information and facts that could help him when confusion sets in. Couldn’t he have sought help instead of disgracing himself the way he did?
4. Prior to Governor Otti’s emergence, the number of Abia Civil Servants stood at 31,000 according to the then Governor Okezie Ikpeazu (See The Cable, Tribune Online March 30, 2023)
   Today, the total number of verified Abia workers stands at over 67,000, excluding the 5,349 newly recruited teachers. What this implies is that tens of thousands of Abia workers who have now been brought into the state payroll were hitherto oppressed, isolated and abandoned under the guise that they were none core civil servants.
   Ironically, Kalu didn’t utter a word when this injustice was meted to Abians, including his constituents, because he wasn’t sure of the ambition he presently nurses, which of course is the real motive behind his petty posturing lately.
5. If Kalu wasn’t a traitor, he would have been magnanimous enough to mention the administration of his former boss and benefactor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu when he was mentioning T.A. Orji and Ikpeazu’s administrations he claimed received small allocations, since his former Boss, Kalu got less allocation than his two successors?
6. It’s interesting that after playing hide and seek and enabling unprovoked opprobrious media onslaught against the government for months, he finally unmasked himself, and his ambition while pretending to be projecting President Tinubu, whom he drops his name at will as a strategy to advancing his selfish political interest.
7. Kalu is a member of the APC, and rightly stated, though with the usual aura of primitive arrogance that he is a leader in the country, yet, he waited for a public political event in Aba three days ago before playing to the gallery in the name of advising Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu to halt the demolition of houses in Lagos, a piece of advice that should have been given quietly and responsibly if the intent was genuine. Kalu should know that President Tinubu knows traitors and sycophants when he sees them, hence it’s difficult to deceive him with lies and incitement.
8. Finally, Kalu should be advised not to overtrouble himself over what he saw in Aba; that was just a rehearsal. Thank God those men and women who trooped out in their thousands were not wearing uniforms, neither were they paid to come and line the streets to give that earthshaking support, solidarity and welcome to Otti and Mr. President’s representative. They are the real witnesses and beneficiaries of good governance, and they know who is who.
   Kalu should have a cold drink, relax, wait for the appropriate time to launch his governorship bid. What he is displaying for now is sheer ignorance and rascality as he keeps boasting about 2027 to the point of resorting to incoherent submissions and mendacious fabrications targeted at the government. We advise that to take on this government on numbers, you must be financially literate.

Ferdinand Ekeoma
Special Adviser to the Governor
(Media and Publicity)
October 06,2025.