Human rights lawyer and civil society activist, Dr. Monday Onyekachi Ubani, says Abia State Governor-Elect, Dr. Alex Otti will be sworn in as substantive governor on May 29, 2023 and no human can stop it.

Ubani declared that it is only the Almighty God that can stop Otti from assuming the mandate “generously and genuinely” given to him by the people of Abia State at the polls on March 18, 2023.

However, the former Chairman of the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) said even God will not stop Otti from being sworn in because Otti’s victory, which effectively has brought the 24 years hegemony of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State to a glorious end, is divinely sanctioned.

Ubani, who hails from Ikwuano, Abia State, spoke in a statement he issued on Friday, following a fake report being circulated by the PDP and its agents in Abia, that a court in Kano State had nullified the candidature of Dr. Otti in the gubernatorial election of March.

“Come 29th of May, 2023, Dr. Alex Otti will be sworn in as the next governor of Abia State.

“It is only Almighty God that can stop him and fortunately He, God, will not stop him now because the mandate of Dr. Alex Otti is not only divine, it was generously and genuinely given by the people of Abia and God approved it.

“Too late for them! Too late,” Ubani said in a tone filled with chastisement over the purported Federal High Court order that did not have Otti or the Labour Party (LP) in Abia State as a party.

In the statement titled: ‘Purported Federal High Court Order Against Dr. Alex Otti’, the lawyer said he was taken aback when he heard the distorted news from Kano that the victories of Otti and all the elected LP candidates from Abia had been quashed.

A Federal High Court in Kano had on Friday ruled that certain Labour Party candidates in Kano State did not have their names properly submitted by the party in the state.

Even though the said litigant tried to rope in Abia LP in the case, the judge expressly declared that the judgment did not in any way affect Abia LP candidates as they were not parties to the case and that the court did not have jurisdiction to entertain such.

Kazie Uko
20/05/2023