We Can Not Sympathize With Corrupt People – Gov Otti Threatens To Go After Looters

Governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, has threatened that his administration will not sympathize with corrupt public officeholders for the state’s interest.

The newly sworn-in governor vowed to go after looters and recover all government funds and property in their hands.

Naija News reports that Otti stated this on Sunday in Umuahia during a thanksgiving service of the Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Hon. Austin Okezie Meregini, held at St. Ann’s Catholic Church.

While reiterating that his administration would disconnect the mouths of more public funds and property looters from the ‘feeding bottle’ of the State, Governor Otti noted that various changes he had made so far in the State’s civil service and the dissolution of various Boards in the State were geared towards rebuilding Abia.

He assured that every stolen public fund and property would be recovered through the recently inaugurated Panel of Inquiry.

“It is also not uncommon for you to be hearing people wailing and crying; that is expected because, for the past 24 years, some people have put their mouths on the feeding bottle, and since we came, we removed their mouths.

“There may be a few people whose mouths we have not seen, which is why we have the Panel. We will fish out those people and remove their mouths from the feeding bottle,” Daily Post quoted the Abia State Governor saying.

Otti said that public funds and property should be used for the good of the people, not to be cornered by a corrupt few.

“The feeding bottle is for all of us. So anytime that happens, you will hear them screaming, ‘The man is undemocratic, the man wants to spoil the State’. We have not come to spoil; we have come to rebuild. “So, if the rebuilding tastes like spoiling to them, we can’t understand, but we cannot sympathize with them,” Otti said while he cheered Church members during the service.

He advised Abians not to lose sleep as his policies were designed for their own good.

Naija News understands that Governor Otti had earlier set up a Judicial Panel of Inquiry, charging it to recover alleged stolen government property from people who served in the previous administrations in the state.

A statement issued by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Prof Kenneth Kalu, named Justice Florence Ikwuoma Duruoha-Igwe of the State High Court Umuahia as the chairman of the panel.

Other members of the panel, according to the SSG, are Prof Ogwo Ekeoma Ogwo, Mazi Ugochukwu Okoroafor, Rev Fr Alex Okonkwo and Prof Ursula Ngozi Akanwa.

His administration has so far sacked several appointees of the immediate past administration, including permanent secretaries.