|
Listen to article
|
Dr. Alex Otti who is the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in Abia State, has cleared the air on the controversy over the money the party’s presidential candidate; Peter Obi said he left as Governor of Anambra state, declaring that the former Anambra Chief Executive was right in his claim.
The Eastern Updates recalls that Otti who was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Diamond Bank then said he supervised the transaction and knew of the investment made for the state.
Speaking in Enugu Otti said it has become necessary for him to speak on the issue.
He said, ‘Let me speak about our presidential candidate, one of the reasons I want to speak about him is that in the media, there have been accusations and counter-accusations about the money he left in Anambra state and as a participant at that time in 2013, 2014, I like to again restate that Peter Obi actually left the money he said he left.
Read Also: Obi Urges Police To Go After Killers Of Imo LP Candidate
‘And I had documented it in my back page article that I wrote some two years ago on the 8th of June, 2020. I happened to be the CEO of Diamond Bank at that time and he (Obi) came to my office, he wanted to leave the money in cash and we said no, we strategised and said we’ll invest the money in Euro Bonds. I personally helped him exchange naira to dollar about 155 million dollars which were invested in the tier two capital of some of the banks and then in some Euro Bonds, some of them have maturities up to 2023, so some of the monies have not matured.
‘So it is important that I clear this, so if you do have access to ThisDay, June 8, 2020, Monday, I titled it ‘The triumph of profligacy over prudence,” and I used that back page to celebrate Peter Obi and as at that time I didn’t know that the two of us will be on the same platform and contesting election today.’
Otti called on Nigerians to embrace Obi and vote for him to take the country out of the imminent danger facing her.
He said, ‘Let us see Peter Obi project not as a South Eastern project, not as Igbo project, but this is a Nigerian project. We are in a situation where if we do not elect Peter Obi, we’ll be in deep soup.
‘Our debt profile today is about N104 billion, unemployment rate 33.3 per cent, poverty level over 52 per cent, 133 million people out of the 200 million people live below poverty line of less than one dollar per day, we must do things differently.’
Speaking to the leadership of his party he said, ‘Labour Party, we need to now get more organised because we must win the Presidential, governorship, House of Assembly, House of Representatives and Senatorial elections that we field people in. So since we must win, we must organise ourselves and if you have contested election before you will know that when people are talking about structure what basically they are talking about is organization.
‘You may have votes everywhere but if you have not organized yourself in such a manner that you can harness the votes, the result may surprise you. The leaders of the party, I charge you to sit down and begin to plan the election. Rallies are very good, they mobilize people, they create awareness but I must add that rallies do not win elections. So what win the elections will be the votes.
‘We must speak to the voters, a lot of them are still not very well educated, we must have people in every polling unit to secure not just the votes but the voters also because I can tell you that our opponents are strategising. And part of their strategy would be if we cannot win this election then we need to destabilise it. So on that election day some people will come purposely to destabilize voting in different polling units, so we must be prepared for that.
