Former Abia State Commissioner for Information John Okiyi Kalu has accused Governor Alex Otti of politicizing insecurity.
Kalu made this known on Monday while reacting to Governor Alex Otti statement, accusing unpatriotic politicians, and some external parties of being behind the current wave of violence and crime in the state
A statement issued by Kalu maintained that Otti’s government made self-indicting statement because he didn’t providing any shred of evidence to justify its hasty and ill-advised claim.
“I make bold to state that it is actually the government of Alex Otti that is playing politics with the lives and property of the people of our dear state by failing to realize how unhelpful and crude its statement is in the quest for the search of solutions.
“Similarly, the obvious panic in the statement and resort to politicization of insecurity is also a clear sign of cluelessness and failure to understand how to effectively manage insecurity and ultimately improve the wellbeing of our people.
“Mr Governor, kindly take note of the following: Every preceding administration in Abia State faced multiple security challenges which were managed without attempting to politicize them. The leaders of those administrations simply understood that a crime is committed by a criminal whose ethnic, religious, and political affiliations, if any, are inconsequential.
“Collaboration with citizens yields valuable information that helps to root out criminals and those citizens can only provide such helpful intelligence in the absence of real or threatened political and social backlash to them.
“Working with constitutionally recognized security agencies with the tools to dispassionately investigate crimes and the required socio-political neutrality is the best approach that delivers sustainable solutions to insecurity. Attempting to turn and focus security agencies towards your political opponents is a clear sign of unmitigated failure in leadership.
“Politically motivated allegations and insinuations do not solve security challenges hence experienced leaders avoid such because it simply allows the real criminals to thrive and multiply while the government engages in shadow boxing with innocent people who ultimately know nothing about the insecurity and are in the main as worried as every other person but ready to offer support to the government.
“The public posturings and body language of Governor Otti make it difficult for even his allies to provide seemingly contrary but helpful information to his publicly held view as the leader.
“People tend to tell the leader what he wants to hear and not necessarily the truth simply because he adopted an “Eze Onye Agwalam” (I know it all) approach to leadership.
“A careful study of security patterns, environment and individuals or groups hitherto associated with perpetrating violent acts yields far more solutions than political name calling in managing insecurity in our state.
“During the administration that preceded that of Otti, we experienced far more security challenges than what he is grappling with today (with his obvious incompetence), yet it was all tackled without politicization and Abia ended up being recognized as the safest state in the South East region and among the top 3 in Nigeria. Governor Otti inherited the security architecture and only needed to improve on it.
Kalu further accused the governor of receiving the highest amount of money as security votes in the history of Abia State and yet wrongly parceling off his leadership failures to unnamed “opposition” while entertaining himself with money meant to support security services in the state.
He, therefore urged Otti to not set up the state for crimes to flourish through chasing political shadows while real criminals thrive and expand their operational territories within the state.
Abia: Kalu accuses Otti of politicizing insecurity
