Strategic Investors and Development Partners Prepare for Abia

Knowing the astute administrator and businessman that he is, Umuehim, Nvosi, Isialangwa South Local Government Area country home of the Abia State Governor-elect Dr. Alex Otti, has remained a destination of choice as high-profile corporate chief executives continue to call on the incoming governor.

Last Friday, the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr. Oliver Alawuba, led a team of the very senior management staff of the pan African bank on a courtesy visit to Otti.

Alawuba congratulated Otti on his electoral victory at the March 18, 2023 governorship election in Abia State, where the Labour Party (LP) candidate effectively ended 24 years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) hegemony in the state.

The visit afforded the Abia governor-elect a nostalgic opportunity to reflect on his days at UBA, where he worked as a Principal Manager overseeing the corporate banking sector for the entire South Division with the responsibility of growing the oil and gas business for the bank.

Since being declared Governor-elect of Abia State on March 22, 2023 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Otti has been meeting with several groups, corporate organisations and individuals, many of whom come to felicitate him on his victory at the  polls, while some others come with proposals to  partner the state in the area of investments and  infrastructure development.

One of the earlier callers was Nigeria’s telecoms giant MTN, whose team of senior management, led by the Chief Enterprise e-Business Officer, Lynda Saint Nwafor, said MTN would be looking at collaborating with the incoming Abia State government in different sectors, including telecommunications access, empowering the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), education, security, and e-Governance, among others.

Also last week, the Managing Director of Nigeria’s construction giant, Julius Berger, Dr. Lars Richter, was at Umuehim to visit with the governor-elect. It was a rare visit by a such high-ranking officer of the company.

Otti had, in one of his interactions with the media during the campaigns for the governorship election, declared that the mere fact that he was announced governor of Abia State would attract many strategic investors and development partners to the state.