Abia’s Q2 2025 Financial Report: Peeling Back the Layers of Otti’s Deception ~by Obinna Oriaku

ONN Abia State 11.08.2025

The recently released Abia State Q2 2025 financial report has ripped the mask off the Alex Otti administration’s carefully curated image of prudence, transparency, and good governance. What was intended as another round of media spin and propaganda has instead exposed a troubling reality, a government long on excuses and short on results, presiding over a financial regime riddled with inconsistencies, questionable spending, and outright deception.

Governor Otti himself did not dispute the figures in the official report of QTR2 prepared by his own administration. According to the document, Abia State raked in ₦114 billion in revenue between April and June 2025, averaging ₦38 billion per month. In the same period, the state also secured a staggering ₦278 billion under Grant's, Capital development receipts and donations.

In theory, this windfall should have translated into visible, impactful projects across the state. Instead, the public is left with little more than patched roads, endless ribbon-cuttings, and hollow media stunts.

One of Otti’s aides attempted to explain away the lack of visible progress by blaming high exchange rates and rising construction costs a poor defense when neighbouring states face the same economic climate yet deliver tangible results.

Enugu State, for instance, has rolled out 263 smart schools, 263 primary healthcare centres, 200 CNG buses, Enugu Air and modern farm settlements in various wards. Imo State has delivered three new secondary hospitals in each senatorial zone alongside major infrastructure upgrades including huge erosion sites that have been reclaimed. Abia, by contrast, has little to show for ₦75 billion allegedly spent on capital projects in Q2 2025 projects that remain either invisible or incomplete.

Worse still, ICT training was brazenly classified as a “capital project,” an accounting sleight of hand that insults the intelligence of Abians. Where is the comprehensive list of projects that soaked up that ₦75 billion in three months? The government has offered no credible answer.

The administration has loudly proclaimed that it has reduced Abia’s debt by ₦78 billion, conveniently ignoring the difference between domestic and external loans. In reality, the state’s external debt ballooned by ₦75 billion in the period under review including a fresh ₦14 billion in 2024. These aren’t figures conjured by critics; they come directly from the state’s own financial records.

It is unconscionable for Abia state to claim to have improved Internally Generated Revenue ( IGR) .Before 2023, Governor Otti as opposition leader castigated Ikpazu administration for poor performance in IGR. He alluded that Abia has opportunity of collecting N5b monthly . However, against the lies being peddled by current Government, Abia IGR under Governor Otti went down to N1.8b from Ikpeazu era of N2b.( We have receipts)

The figure of N4billion being brandished as monthly collections is deceitful and fraudulent as the Government deliberately adds collections from school fees including Identification card fee from students ABSU, Abia Poly ; School of Health,and all Secondary school fees , hospital bill collections and all the fees from ABSUTH and all Health institutions etc ,which were not included as IGR collections during Ikpeazu era.

Unfortunately, the centralization through TSA has castrated these institutions while thrashing the University autonomy. The management of these institutions and agencies are always at Umuehim demanding funds for as least as, restocking their stationaries, mowing of lawns, and other daily consumables.

Abia state is the worst performing state in IGR when compared to other states. Enugu State met N3.5b as monthly performance in 2023but today Enugu is doing N27b monthly, Imo is doing N6b , Anambra is N7b , Ebony is N4b while Abia is doing N1.9b.

The lack of idea on Abia IGR is a clean manifestation of the saying that :talk is cheap especially as Opposition"

It is embarassing for Governor Otti's aide to ask for offer letters of external loans as proof that Abia has not borrowed when their QTR 2 report expressly stated the increased loan amount from 2023 to 2024 . They keep exposing how technically deficient they are as Government.

Thanks to federal reforms by President Bola Tinubu, Abia now receives ₦38 billion monthly allocations against a wage bill of just ₦4.6 billion Which leaves the state with N33b monthly . This means salaries and pensions are practically guaranteed, yet Otti’s government continues to tout salary payment as an “achievement,” as though meeting a basic obligation still warrants applause in this circumstance.

For months, the administration’s strategy has been to dazzle the gullible with glossy headlines and cosmetic projects. But the cracks are widening. The wagon-effect loyalty is fading. More Abians are asking hard questions:

1.) Where is the evidence of the ₦75 billion in capital expenditure?

2.) Why is external debt soaring despite claims of debt reduction?

3.) Why is Abia lagging far behind neighbouring states with similar resources

The truth is becoming harder to bury. As the veil slips, the reality is stark beneath the propaganda, Alex Otti’s government is a masterclass in financial obfuscation, misplaced priorities, and the art of the cover-up.

Abians deserve answers, not excuses. And no amount of media hype can hide the fact that this administration, especially in Q2 2025, the state had both the resources and the opportunity to make a remarkable impact which we are yet to see .

©️EKWEDIKE