• Group hails Otti over law, advocates fiscal discipline

Following the repeal of the Abia State Governors and Deputy Governors Pension Law, last week, the state Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, faulted the development.

Abia PDP, through its Vice Chairman/Acting Publicity Secretary, Elder Abraham Amah, in a statement, yesterday, titled, ‘Repeal of Abia Former Governors Pension Law,’ argued that the repealed law would have been amended to expunge any section or sections considered outrageous or inordinate.

Amah queried whether by the outright repeal, Governor Alex Otti was telling Abians that a person who served the state for either four or eight years in such high capacity and highly demanding position as governor and deputy governor does not deserve a pension, no matter how little, to take care of oneself in old age.”

He described the development as another attempt by Otti to resort to populism to draw undeserved attention to himself.

According to Amah, since the news of the repeal filtered in, all the former governors of the state, through their spokespersons, have denied having received any pension from the governor since he assumed office, stressing: ” It beats our understanding why a governor, who has not paid pension to his predecessors, would quickly rush to repeal the law if not to massage his little ego and portray himself as a patron saint when he is not.”

The Abia PDP Acting Publicity Secretary said that the party has reasons to believe that Otti is using his office to pursue personal vendetta against the former governors, as shown in this singular act, which has not added any value to the Abia treasury.

Meanwhile, impressed by the performance of the governor, the Foundation for Environmental Rights, Advocacy and Development (FENRAD) has commended the governor for repealing the law.

The group also expressed joy that the governor promptly signed the bill into law, as soon as the lawmakers passed it last week.

The bill had been sponsored by the Majority Leader of the House, Uchenna Kalu (Arochukwu constituency), aimed at removing outrageous spending by the state government.

In a statement issued at the weekend, the Executive Director of FENRAD, Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, also advised strict fiscal discipline in the state to achieve more on infrastructural facilities and payment of statutory gratuities and pensions to the rightful retirees, who either spent 35 years in service or 60 years in age, while serving their fatherland.

Nwafor said that prior to the repeal, it was a “travesty of justice and unsustainable for the state to pay ex-governor and their deputies, while actual retirees were owed upward of 10 years.