By Akoma  Chinweoke

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance in Abia, Dr. Alex Otti, has expressed the hope that the completion of Geometric Power Plant in Aba will help to provide uninterrupted power supply to the commercial city and its environs just as he promised to build cocoa processing plant in Bende Local Government Area (LGA) of the state, if elected.

Alex Otti

Otti said this in an interview with journalist at the project site during an inspection tour of the facility by President Goodluck Jonathan  adding that the take off of the plant would help to rejuvenate industrial and economic activities in the city..

He said: ‘’This is a good project and it means a whole lot for Aba and its environs because the day Geometric switches on power, Aba will begin to enjoy 24-hour uninterrupted power supply.

‘’This will further jumpstart a lot of economic and industrial activities in Aba,” he said.

Otti regretted that a lot of small and medium scale enterprises in the city were unable to operate ‘’because of epileptic power supply. So, the hope is that as soon as the company comes alive, the industries will come back and employment will be generated.”

He opined that the boost in economic activities would help to reduce social tension, while security would be easily managed.

Otti, who joined other dignitaries in Abia to welcome the president, hailed Federal Government’s promise to intervene in resolving the disagreement between Geometric and the Bureau of Private Enterprise (BPE).

He noted that the company had been at loggerheads with BPE over the status of Aba business district, which ought to be carved out as an island for Geometric, but later sold by BPE to Interstate Electric as part of Enugu DisCo and said that government’s intervention would enable the company to complete the little work left for the plant to take off.

The former Diamond Bank chief recalled how the bank intervened in 2011 to ensure that work resumed on the project after it suffered a setback due to the global economic recession pointing out that he took the project to the board of the bank, when he joined in 2011 and got the bank’s approval ‘’to restart the project again,”

He  also said that in view of the huge amount involved, he also took the matter to the former Governor of the Central Bank, Malam Lamido Sanusi, for further discussion.

He further explained that the Asset Management Company of Nigeria later intervened by taking part of the loan ‘’to make it easier for Geometric,” while the bank began funding in 2011.

Otti expressed optimism that with the president’s visit, the problem between Geometric and BPE ‘’will be resolved,” saying that ‘’the plant is virtually ready.”

Meanwhile, Otti said during a different town hall meetings he had with the people of Bende and Ozuitem communities that he would also build cocoa storage facilities in the area.

He said that he would not only intervene in boosting cocoa production in the area but would also add value to the product in order to make it more profitable to the farmers.

He said: ‘’I appreciate that Bende people produce large quantity of cocoa so my first assignment, when I become governor, will be to establish storage facilities and processing plants in this place.

‘’We will add value to what you are producing with the processing plant so that your product can be processed into cocoa butter, chocolate and sundry other beverages, which can be exported to other countries,” he said.

Otti regretted that industries, including the Ceramics and Golden Breweries, Star Paper Mill, among others, which thrived in Umuahia and Aba, the commercial hub of the state in the 1970s and 1980s, had become moribund.

He said that he would create the enabling environment, with friendly policies that would attract the private sector and ensure that industries thrive again in the state. ‘’Government alone cannot create jobs but our duty is to create  conducive environment for the private sector to come in,” he said.

The APGA governorship flag bearer also promised to reconstruct the dilapidated Umuahia-Bende Road to ease the movement of people, goods and services in the area.

‘’I have come to fix Abia and rescue the people from abject poverty and suffering,” he said.

He assured the communities that he would provide free and compulsory education, saying that ‘’your duty as parents is to release your children and wards of school-age to go to school.”

Otti also said that he would provide ‘’quality empowerment” for women and youths, regretting that many graduates had been turned into tricycle (otherwise called ‘’Keke”) operators due to the lack of decent and befitting jobs.

‘’Keke and tokunbo empowerment for our graduates and school leavers will soon become a thing of the past,” he said.

He said that the problem of Abia’s underdevelopment was not the lack of money, saying that ‘’the mistake we made is that we allowed our state to be governed by people who have no ideas and vision on how to develop the state.”