Every Society Gets the Type of Leadership it Deserves – Abia Governor Otti
By Juliet Vincent
The Governor of Abia State, Dr Alex Otti said that every society gets the type of leadership it deserves.He spoke in Abuja on Sunday at The Transforming Church (TTC) in Gwarimpa, Abuja where he was a guest of Rev Dr Sam Oye, the Lead Pastor of the church.
Otti said time there was that children of God would sit idly and allow persons who have no good mission for the society to take up leadership positions in the country “If you sit back and conclude that politics is for ‘them’, the politicians would determine your destiny for you.”
Speaking as if he was sermonising, he said, “There is a saying in the scripture that power belongs to God; if that is so, why are the children of God shying away from politics? From getting into politics and power, you can affect a lot of changes.
“As the former Managing Director of Diamond Bank from 2011 to 2023, I could only affect a little population, but as a governor of a state today, I have a larger population of people to affect their lives for the good of the society. For instance, on coming in, we realised that our people were suffering; so we identified 10,000 of them and put 1billion naira into their hands cumulatively without any interest. By that, we created 10,000 jobs. Just recently too, we disbursed 365m naira interest free loans to 300 farmers . All of these have changed the landscape, and I couldn’t have done them if I wasn’t in power,” he said.
Narrating the events preceding his assumption of power, he said, his election victory was essentially a divine arrangement that God used Rev Oye to initiate, saying while the clergyman was praying, he was equally asking him to work hard as against merely praying and asking him to go and sleep as it’s common with other people.
On how the prayer made the authorities to initiate a change in his favour, he said,
“Just 48 hours to the election, the returning officer for Abia was changed and a woman professor from Owerri was brought to the state. I was a bit panicky, but didn’t know that God was rearranging things by using her to replace the former returning officer. Everything was done to influence this woman after the ballots were cast, but she refused to be influenced until the correct results were announced and we were announced on March 22, 2023.
“I want to thank Rev Sam, his wife and entire TTC family for standing by me. I am therefore challenging all young men not to shy from politics because that is where decisions that affect their lives are made,” he said.
