sought from the African Development Bank in 2017.
The LP’s governorship hopeful had, in a chat with journalists, confirmed petitioning authorities to stop the loan, pointing out that the state government was yet to account for federal allocations received and previous loans collected, as well as falsified documents to get the loan without the approval of the state legislature.
He explained that in 2017, Abia was among 10 states given accelerated approval to borrow the sum of $1.5 billion from multilateral agencies and France, as well as part of the 2016-2018 External Borrowing Plan, which approval the Presidency had sought in August 2016. “Obviously, the facility was approved by the state House of Assembly for infrastructure development, whereas Otti’s phantom government official told him in his dreams that the facility was for payment of workers’ salary arrears.