A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, has named Abia State Governor Alex Otti as his Person of the Year for 2025, citing the governor’s remarkable turnaround of a state that had been reduced to “a disaster zone and a jungle” by successive administrations over nearly a quarter of a century.
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Odinkalu made the declaration in a LinkedIn post on Wednesday, describing Otti’s biggest achievement as restoring the hope of the people in the idea of government as propositional and politics as virtuous.
“For doing this in Nigeria where politics is largely narcissistic and nihilistic, Alex Otti is my Person of the Year,” Odinkalu wrote.
The former human rights chief traced the decline of Abia State, the first of Nigeria’s 36 states by alphabetical order, through three successive administrations which he described as disastrous.
According to him, former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu, who governed from 1999 to 2007, was convicted of looting the state dry and sentenced to a long prison term, but was set loose on what Odinkalu described as “a manufactured technicality.”
“He is now a senior member of Nigeria’s Senate, making laws which he is too crooked to obey,” Odinkalu stated.
He recalled that as Kalu prepared to leave power in 2007, he installed his then Chief of Staff, Theodore Orji, who was detained in jail on trial for roguery, arranging for the man to take his gubernatorial oath from prison so he could enjoy constitutional immunity as governor.
“From jail, Theodore marched on the State capital in Umuahia where he promptly unleashed eight years of pure plunder,” Odinkalu said.
He added that Theodore Orji arranged to be succeeded by Okezie Ikpeazu, noting that in Igbo language, “Ikpeazu” means “Dead Last.”
“That is exactly where the man arranged to get the state – dead last in every index of performance and governance. So abysmal was he that by the end of his tenure, Ikpeazu has arranged to become a personal assistant to then governor of neighbouring Rivers State, the execrable Nyesom Wike,” Odinkalu wrote.
He stated that between them, over nearly half a century, Orji Kalu, Theodore Orji and Okezie Ikpeazu turned Abia State into a disaster zone where everything was denuded of value, including human life, and the people lost hope in the possibility of a better tomorrow.
Odinkalu noted that in 2023, by the skin of their teeth, the people of Abia State elected banker-turned-politician Alex Otti as governor.
“For this son of a pastor, his predecessors had set a low bar alright but, having grown used to bandit politicians, the people of the state had lost the right to hope,” he said.
He stated that in 30 months as governor, Alex Otti engineered a turnaround in the fate of Abia State, pointing to tangible achievements including urban regeneration in the state capital, Umuahia; regeneration of the industrial hub of Aba; clearing arrears of salary and pension debts; and major infrastructure works such as the Umuahia-Uzuakoli-Abiriba Road, Port Harcourt Road in Aba, the Aguiyi-Ironsi Boulevard, and captive power in Aba.
“Important as these are, Alex Otti’s biggest achievement is an intangible – restoring the hope of the people in the idea of government as propositional and politics as virtuous,” Odinkalu concluded.
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