ABIA/ANAMBRA — In a major development regarding Nigeria’s fiscal accountability debates, the Executive Governor of Abia State, Alex Otti, has definitively cleared the air on the long-standing controversy surrounding the financial reserves left behind by Peter Obi at the end of his tenure as Governor of Anambra State. Otti, who served as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the defunct Diamond Bank PLC during that exact period, confirmed that Obi's claims of substantial state savings are entirely factual and verifiable.

Speaking at a high-level strategic gathering in Enugu, Governor Otti stated that his intervention became necessary to replace media speculation with hard, firsthand financial evidence. He revealed that as a principal institutional participant in the transaction between 2013 and 2024, he personally oversaw the conversion and investment strategies of the funds under discussion.

The Anatomy of the Trade: From Cash to Eurobonds

Providing a detailed breakdown of the transaction, Governor Otti recalled how Peter Obi initially approached Diamond Bank with the intention of keeping a massive volume of physical cash in the state’s local currency accounts.

"I happen to be the CEO of Diamond Bank at that time, and he wanted to leave the money in cash," Otti explained to the audience. "We strategized and said no, we’ll invest the money in Eurobonds instead. I personally helped him exchange Naira to Dollars about $155 million which was then strategically invested in the Tier-2 capital of several tier-one commercial banks and across a diversified portfolio of sovereign Eurobonds."

The Abia State Governor emphasized that the long-term investment strategy was built to yield sustainable dividends for Anambra State well into the future, with several of the high-yield financial instruments holding maturity dates extending up to late 2023. This structured maturity timeline explains why parts of the funds could not be liquidated immediately by subsequent state administrations without incurring significant financial penalties.

Otti pointed out that he had fully documented the entire banking transaction long before the current political cycle began. He directed researchers and the public to his archival back-page editorial published on Monday, June 8, 2020, in ThisDay Newspaper, titled “The Triumph of Profligacy over Prudence.” In that specific publication, written years before both men found themselves running on the same political platform, Otti had openly celebrated Obi’s rare display of sub-national fiscal discipline and capital preservation.

A Critical Warning on Macroeconomic Stagnation

Transitioning from historical financial records to the nation’s current economic realities, Governor Otti warned that Nigeria is operating under a highly fragile macroeconomic framework. He noted that the country’s ballooning debt profile, an unemployment rate hovering around 33.3%, and a poverty index revealing that over 133 million citizens live below the global poverty line demand a radical departure from conventional governance models.

"Let us see the Peter Obi project not as a South-Eastern or an Igbo project, but as an essential Nigerian project," Otti asserted. "We are in a situation where if we do not intentionally change our approach to wealth creation and fiscal prudence, our economic future will face severe stagnation."

Rallies vs. Ground Structure: Otti’s Charge to the Labour Party

Addressing the internal leadership and operational organs of the Labour Party (LP), Governor Otti delivered a pragmatic, data-driven lecture on effective election management and grassroots organization. He challenged party administrators to look past the euphoria of crowded public rallies and focus heavily on building airtight polling unit structures.

Otti argued that in modern electoral logistics, the abstract concept of "political structure" boils down to pure, meticulous field organization. He warned that having widespread public sympathy does not automatically translate into a victorious outcome if a political party lacks the localized capacity to harness, document, and protect individual ballots.

"Rallies are very good; they mobilize people and create massive public awareness, but I must add that rallies alone do not win elections," Otti cautioned heavily. "What wins elections are the actual votes counted and secured. We must continuously educate the voters at the grassroots level. Furthermore, our party must deploy trained, disciplined personnel to every single polling unit across the federation, not only to secure the physical ballot boxes but to protect the voters themselves from orchestrated efforts aimed at destabilizing the voting process."