Immidiate past governor of Abia State, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, has debunked allegations by his successor, Dr. Alex Otti, that the state government was owing commercial banks under his (Ikpeazu) watch.
He said the N2 billion loan claim only “exists in the imaginations of the peddlers of the wicked and warped narrative.”
Ikpeazu in a statement issued by his spokesman and Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Mr. Onyebuchi Ememanka, claimed that the said N2billion loan reportedly taken by the his administration was a scheme by the incumbent administration in the state to “surreptitiously inform key agencies and arms of government that their reason for not meeting their obligations to them is because there is an outstanding loan of a whooping N2 billion taken by the Ikpeazu administration from Zenith Bank and UBA.”
The former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) led government in the state while challenging Governor Otti to make public his claims that Ikpeazu borrowed the said amount from the commercial banks said “in what has become a clear case of obsession and paranoia, no day passes without the present administration in Abia State looking for some reason to blame the preceding administration for everything under the sun, no matter how unreasonable.
“Their latest strategy is to surreptitiously inform key agencies and arms of government that their reason for not meeting their obligations to them is because there is an outstanding loan of a whopping N2billion taken by the Ikpeazu administration from Zenith Bank and UBA.
“Nothing could be farther from the truth. The N2 billion loan exists in the imaginations of the peddlers of the wicked and warped narrative.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to make it abundantly clear that as at 28th day of May 2023 when the administration of Dr Okezie Ikpeazu ended by effluxion of time, the government of Abia State was not owing any commercial bank in the ordinary course of business.
“This is actually a no-brainer because no commercial bank in Nigeria will grant any facility to any state government, the repayment terms of which will run beyond their tenure of office.
“In the ordinary course of business, the Abia State Government, like every state government in Nigeria, had financial arrangements with banks by way of Temporary Overdraft facilities (TOD).
“We are, however, proud to state that all TODs were cleared before we left office. To be more specific, the only outstanding TOD with UBA which was in the region of 6 Billion Naira was fully repaid in the months of March and April 2023. It is public knowledge that the last allocation received by the Ikpeazu administration was for the month of April 2023.”