Former Abia State Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has challenged Governor Alex Otti to make the allegations of corrupt practices against him public.
Ikpeazu's request is prompted by the governor's claims that a forensic audit report from a reputable company indicted the former governor.
The former governor through his aide, Sir Onyebuchi Ememanka, said when forensic auditors are appointed and when they completed their task, the reasonable thing to do is to make the Forensic Audit Report public and allow the document speak for itself.
Otti in a viral video said, "I have set up forensic audit as soon as I took over as Governor. So that there will be no argument, I called in one of the top three audit firms in the world and not too long ago they turned in their reports and some of the things in their reports in frightening.
"N79.3 billion naira was paid to seven Contractors for contracts that were not executed at all. Another N15.9 billion almost N16 billion was paid to 63 contractors with no supporting documents anywhere. Another N13 billion was paid to two contractors for contracts that do not exist out of these figures, N10 billion was on September 25, 2020, paid to some contractors for the construction of Abia State Airport.
"We've spent time trying to locate the airport and up till now, we've failed. One of my aides told me the other day that maybe we're using native intelligence to look for the airport and that we should seek artificial intelligence. We've also involved security agents to help us find the airport," he sad.
But Ememanka said ever since leaving office as the governor of Abia State for two consecutive terms, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu had carried himself with the dignity his present situation in life demands and had, as a matter of personal policy, avoided any confrontation with the present governor and his administration.
He said at best, what Ikpeazu has authorised are clarifications whenever the Otti's administration seeks to misinform the public about what transpired during the last administration.
Ememanka said what Otti said at the forum abroad was a tissue of lies, "intricately woven by a spin doctor to deceive his audience and internationalise his known deep aversion for his predecessor.
"For starters, we welcome the fact that the governor has chosen to bring in a reputable firm of auditors which conducted a forensic audit. According to him, the firm 'is one of the top three in the world', therefore it must be Deloitte, Ernst and Young or PriceWaterhouseCoopers. These are firms whose professionalism and global repute are not in doubt.
"Forensic Audits are no voodoo schemes. They are acceptable means of investigating the finances of organizations and governments.
They are carried out by top accounting professionals who are disinterested in politics and internal shenanigans in the organization they are auditing.
"They are not even conclusive evidence of any guilt on the part of any person. They are at best, pointers to financial malfeasance. When they are to be used in a criminal trial, lawyers will subject them to cross-examination and the people involved will be afforded the opportunity to defend themselves.
"Governor Alex Otti should, as a matter of public policy, name the accounting firm that did the audit and release the audit report. Abia State has a functional website. The audit report should be posted there immediately. Going to a foreign land to make comments about a document that is not in the public domain portrays the Governor as an administrative comedian," he said.
On the issues raised by Otti, Ememanka said that Ikpeazu never built any airport and never claimed to have built one, stressing that facts are sacred.
"At some point in our administration, the idea of building an airport came up. It was an ambitious idea that the governor wanted to pursue and one of the schemes that were considered then for funding the project was a Public Private Partnership.
"The state government announced their plan to invest the sum of N10 billion into the project. Some private investors showed interest and the government through the Ministry of Lands, commenced the acquisition of a large expanse of land at a location between Ikwuano and Isiala-Ngwa North local government areas.
"There were interfaces between the ministry and the representatives of the land-owning communities, and some investors actually came to Abia to hold preliminary discussions with representatives of the state government on the project.
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"While these talks went on, a section of the Abia public felt that the airport idea was ill-timed. Indeed, the State Traditional Rulers Council led by their then chairman, Eze Joseph Nwabeke, visited the governor and advised him to shelve the airport plans and channel such funds, if they were available, into the completion of some critical road projects then.
"This was exactly what the governor did. Indeed, at a hangout with some selected journalists in Lagos, then Governor Ikpeazu, after speaking on the advantages of having an airport, told them that he had decided to backtrack on the project based on the yearnings of our people. The video wherein the governor made that statement is available and will be made public after this release."
Ikpeazu's spokesperson further explained that the only money the Ikpeazu's administration committed to the airport project was N10 million, released to the Ministry of Lands during the process of acquiring the land and managing the interface with the local communities.
