Setting The Records Straight On AFDB Loan, RAMP Projects in Abia- Ferdinand Ekeoma

In the last few days, a former Commisisoner for Information in Abia State, Chief John Okiyi Kalu has intentionally embarked on a vicious voyage of disinformation geared towards distorting the facts surrounding the on-going massive road projects being carried out by the Alex Otti government in Abia State.

Unfortunately, he drives his false narratives and bitter tantrums against the Governor with insults, anger and desperation to blackmail him and erode his personality. He believes that by applying that strategy, we would be forced to respond and make him relevant. Well, we only respond to expose his tomfoolery and ignominy, so that the public would still see how unrepentant he has remained after being a major enabler of the destruction of Abia State and lives of innocent Abians through bad governance.

The AFDB Loan:

As at this moment, no dime has been drawn by Abia State Government from the AFDB Loan. The final approval that would enable the state receive the funds has not even happened. After the present government followed up the loan application with financial intelligence and overwhelming evidence of capacity, transparency and due process, the state received a GRANT to carry out the necessary initial designs. I repeat that, no dime of the 200 million USD AFDB Loan has been collected by Abia State Government led by Governor Alex Otti. I challenge John Okiyi Kalu to present any evidence to the contrary.

As a follow-up to his initial article on the aforementioned two subject matters through another article captioned ” Abia RAMP Projects: I Stand By Every Word I Wrote”, Kalu manifested the kind of ignorance that defeated every pretence he had put up about his so-called knowledge and information on the two subject matters.

First, he published what is called “Inventory of Abia Roads” as requested by World Bank, which is a precondition for commencement of discussion on the roads to be funded with whatever funds that would be approved for the borrowing state, if it meets the necessary requirements. He refused tell those he wanted to deceive what it truly represented
It’s from this Inventory that any road or roads considered to be of economic importance, especially to the rural people would now be taken into consideration during approvals. How does this imply that the Umuahia-Uzuakoli-Abiriba-Ohafia road financed 100% by Abia State Government under Governor Otti or any other road mentioned thereof was built with a loan that has not even been accessed by 1kobo?
How does listing a road and publishing it on the Internet or pages of newspapers amount to execution or approval for execution? Obviously, Kalu was used to, and was deeply involved in the deceitful practice of audio project execution backed by cheap propaganda.

Once again, can John Okiyi Kalu show any evidence that the road in question was executed with the so-called AFDB Loan?

RAMP:

The latest hallucination around the RAAMP project, as always, has further proven Kalu’s penchant for approaching sensitive issues with ignorance, advertised with intentional lies. For the records, RAAMP (Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project) is a federal initiative managed centrally and co-financed by the World Bank, French Development Agency (AFD), and counterpart funds from the participating States. No state, not even Abia, is “awarded” $60 million. Disbursements are made through a basket fund based on project performance and drawdown capacity. The claim that Abia had an exclusive $60 million allocation is either a creation of acute ignorance or a premeditated intention to employ deceit as a potent strategy for creating disaffection in the polity.

There’s a 570 millions USD in a basket to be accessed by the 19 participating states in the RAMP Projects in Nigeria, predicated on laid down preconditions that must be met. Assuming, but not stating that this fund is to be accessed equally by the participating 19 states in Nigeria, Abia would receive about 30 Million USD.

The only RAAMP project awarded so far in Abia is the pilot road of the 19.1km Itungwa–Amaise–Amari–Omoba–Obete–Mgboko–Abiaba–Umuobiakwa–Nkwo Elechi road, flagged off under Governor Alex Otti in 2024. And unlike the past, this administration raised the bar—insisting on a new engineering standard with stone base instead of laterite, a move that is unprecedented in RAAMP’s sub-national execution across Nigeria. That is the kind of negotiation that a responsible and exposed leadership led by Governor Alex Otti can pull off. I challenge Kalu to dispute this fac

This road project in question did not see the light of the day under the previous government because they were more interested in carrying it out in a fraudulent manner, which included using their political fronts as contractors in order to execute substandard projects and divert the funds as usual.

Again, Kalu was also not courageous enough to tell Abians that the 5 million Euro RAMP approval they got and was paid into the state account was cancelled because they made an attempt to force a civil servant to move the funds to a strange private account with a view to diverting the money, but the officer refused and alerted the World Bank, leading to the approval being cancelled. Why is Kalu afraid to tell this story?

Unlike what was obtainable under the previous government and what is obtainable in different states of the federation, Governor Alex Otti is the only Governor today that has raised the bar of engagement with finacials institutions/Donor Agencies to a level where Abia state now gives these institutions conditions for accepting any project being funded or supported by them, because the Governor’s philosophy as a Financial Expert is that, once it’s a loan, you cannot dictate the conditionality for us, and you cannot lower our standard.

As usual, Okiyi Kalu brazenly lied without qualms that Ikpeazu’s administration “paid the entire counterpart funding” for RAAMP, even when his conscience reminds him that for 8 years, the only counterpart fund paid by the Ikpeazu administration was ₦530 million.
This underpayment made it impossible for that administration to make any reasonable headway in the RAMP PROJECTS.
Meanwhile, in less than two years, the Otti administration has paid the sum of N600 million and approved an additional sum of N2.2 billion, a bold step that has opened opportunities for the success of the RAMP Project in the New Abia.

Since PDP’s defeat in 2023 which finally brought Okiyi Kalu’s primitive politics of hate, dishonesty and defamation to an end, he has yet to recover from the emotional trauma. This is simply because, he was too personal and hated with inexplicable venom a man who never knew he existed..He behaved like a smaller version of Idi Amin, played God like a stone-age politician, and wore their government’s corrupt apparel of invisibility with distructive audacity.

One of Kalu’s anger was that Governor Otti as an Opposition Leader stopped them from initially accessing the 200 million USD AFDB loan with forged documents. Kalu feels broken and keeps raising this issue, because he must have been jogging, celebrating and popping champagne in anticipation of what he was going to loot from the money, that’s why he keeps crying that Governor Otti stopped the loan. Need we remind him that his tears of sorrow gladden the hearts of excited Abians who would have suffered if Dr. Otti didn’t stop the loan that was initially approached fraudulently?

Discerning minds could also easily see that Kalu’s puerile pieces and unprovoked lies and venom against Governor Otti over the massive road projects being executed by his government is precipitated by inferiority complex, borne out of the shame that what the Ikpeazu government which he served and deceived with lies couldn’t do in 8 years, Otti is doing in less than two years, so he thinks that the best way to express his anger and frustration is to audaciously tell despicable lies that could only be embraced by unintelligent and uninformed persons, sadly for him, Abians have since moved on, hence his posts on his social media page do not even receive up to 0.5 percent supportive comments from his over 30000 Facebook followers, because they see him as a huge joke.

Honestly, it’s time to pray for this Propagandist who is still living in the past, because he has been left behind in his Old Abia mud.

Ferdinand Ekeoma
April 17, 2025.