Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, at the weekend, announced that he will retire from politics once he finishes his second term as the governor of the state.
Saying that he has no plan to vie for a seat at the Senate, Otti said his main purpose of venturing into politics is to lay a good foundation for Abia State to grow.
Speaking at a reception held in his honour by the Anambra Development Unions Association, Aba branch, the governor said the reports that he would be contesting for Senate are misleading
“When I finish my eight years here, I will retire. I am not going to Abuja,” he said, adding that Nigeria’s politics is evolving hence there is a need for the young ones to be given the platform to lead the country.
“We are no longer that young. Society is changing, and the young ones are rising. It’s time we give them the opportunity,” Otti said.
Meanwhile, Governor Otti has promised that he will reinstate all the non-indigenes sacked from Abia State civil service by previous administrations.
He also assured of his unwavering determination to rehabilitate some old industries and businesses in the state as part of efforts to create job opportunities for the people.
The Abia State government between 2010 and 2011 retrenched some Imo, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and others in the state’s civil service in a move it hinged on need to restructure the work force.
Many of the affected non-indigenes were relieved of their appointments at the twilight of their careers, denying them their retirement benefits and pensions.
Apart from terminal benefits, all the sacked workers were owed salary arrears of between 16 and 23 months.
The fate of sacked non-indigenes was one of the issues raised at the meeting with the Anambra Development Unions Association, Aba branch, which submitted a list of 154 people disengaged in 2011 to the governor.
Otti said: “I have taken the list and I will ask my people to look at it. I see that majority of the people were teachers and I don’t know how old they are now.
“But if they are under 65, we will be able to work out an arrangement where we may re-engage them on contract basis.
“We have a shortage of teachers and because we don’t agree that somebody who lives here is not from here, that action in 2011 was illegal.”
He assured the association that he would direct the state’s head of service, who, incidentally is a non-indigene from Edo State, to look into the case to find a way of either compensating them or re-absorbing them.
“As I noticed, this issue is not limited to Anambra indigenes. People from Imo and other South East states may have been affected. What we are trying to do is to redress the wrong of the past,” he said.
He said that rather than sacking workers, his administration will create jobs to gainfully employ qualified job seekers, who could be lured to crime by unemployment.
He said that his administration is currently interfacing with the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) on the possibility of acquiring and resuscitating the moribund Aba Textile Mills and Star Paper Mills, as well as other moribund large scale industrial outfits in Aba.
“We are negotiating with the people that acquired the Aba Textile Mill. We want to return it to life. As a government, we are interfacing with AMCON. We want to acquire the Star Paper Mill and bring it back on stream.
“These industries were set up by our forebears. They were visionary. So, if we cannot do better than them, we cannot explain why we are in this world.
“So, it is a challenge. I want the support of everyone so that we return our state to what it used to be,” Otti said.
