Abia State Governor Alex Otti has moved to quash rumours linking his recent visit to the Presidential Villa with plans to defect to the All Progressives Congress (APC), insisting that his engagement with President Bola Tinubu was narrowly focused on a pressing security matter: the ongoing efforts to secure the release of detained Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) leader Nnamdi Kanu.
The clarification, issued through the governor’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ferdinand Ekeoma, pushed back forcefully against allegations made by Charles Ogbonnaya, a former Abia commissioner and local party chieftain, who suggested the Villa meeting was a political manoeuvre. Ekeoma described those claims as “misleading and entirely false,” and provided a sequence of events to frame Otti’s interventions: the governor visited Kanu at the Sokoto Correctional Centre on November 30, 2025, and later met President Tinubu as part of ongoing, multi-year engagements with the federal government to secure the detained activist’s release.
Ekeoma said Otti has been quietly conducting negotiations for over two years on the matter, positioning the governor’s interventions as humanitarian and reconciliatory rather than partisan. According to his spokesman, the president responded positively during the meeting, offering assurances that federal authorities remain engaged. “The meeting with President Tinubu was focused on one issue only,” Ekeoma said, stressing the sensitivity and complexity of the case and the need to correct any narratives that would politicise the governor’s actions.
The governor’s office also turned the attack on its accuser. Ekeoma accused Ogbonnaya of a personal vendetta rooted in political disappointment dating to 2023, arguing that the former commissioner’s charges were motivated by grievance rather than truth. He challenged Ogbonnaya to provide specifics about those he claimed Otti had “betrayed,” calling the allegations inconsistent and unsubstantiated.
Political watchers note that Otti’s outreach on Kanu is significant for several reasons. First, it signals a governor willing to engage directly with federal power to address an issue of national and regional sensitivity. The Kanu case has deep resonance across the South-East and continues to galvanise public sentiment. Second, by publicly disavowing defection rumours, Otti is managing his political profile — he acknowledges that interest from APC circles exists, but he insists any move would be public and strategic rather than clandestine.
Ekeoma emphasised that Otti’s discussions with federal authorities did not equate to a political bargain, but rather a humanitarian effort consistent with his administration’s stated priorities. The governor’s intervention, the aide said, aimed to “bring closure to a difficult national conversation,” not to secure partisan advantage.
Observers caution that the optics of a state governor visiting the detention facility of a polarising figure and then entering the Presidential Villa will inevitably fuel speculation. But Otti’s side is clearly intent on reframing the narrative as one of diplomacy and advocacy rather than political horse-trading.
The governor’s visit to Sokoto and subsequent engagement with the president also illustrate the complicated interplay between regional demands, federal authority and the politics of reconciliation — a balancing act that will continue to define Otti’s relationships with both his constituents and national leaders as the country moves toward the 2027 electoral cycle.