Governor Alex Otti of Abia State has stated that the State’s Judicial Panel of Inquiry on the Recovery of Government Properties, Funds, and related matters was not set up to witch-hunt anybody.
Governor Otti, while receiving the final report, Tuesday, from members of the panel, led by Florence Duroha-Igwe, a retired Judge emphasised that setting up the judicial panel of Inquiry had nothing to do with vendetta, nor did it have anything to do with scapegoatism.
“We just needed to know what happened. Like we had said, and it was a long time ago, a proper handover was not done. So, a lot of times, we were just groping, trying to get information. But that’s by the way now. We’ve trudged on and we’ve done two years.
“But then, a lot of people had a lot of concerns, which we felt that in a democracy, they needed to be heard.
And those concerns needed to be investigated,”
Governor Otti assured that the Government would take the report seriously, disclosing that, already, a committee on the white Paper production has been constituted and the report would be given to them.
“So, one thing that I can confirm to you is that, we are going to take this report very seriously. Like the Honourable Attorney General has said, these two volumes will be immediately dispatched to the Committee on the Production of the White Paper, which will be an instrument.
“So, the Committee (White Paper Production), I’m aware, has been doing a lot of work on the already submitted volumes.
“And these will also be sent to them so that they can flesh out the issues that we needed to deal with”, Governor Otti, stated.
Be thanked the Chairman and members of the panel for the hard work that they did in the past two years and a few months, saying that the Government did not anticipate that the panel would take much time.
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“We also did not expect the barrages of petitions and memoranda. So, like you rightly pointed out when you submitted the first set of reports, you had indicated that you had over 70 memoranda and petitions that you were not able to look into.
“We felt it was not going to be fair to ignore people who have sat down to put their thoughts together on what they knew about the State. And that’s why we had to extend your stay,” Gov. Otti stated.
Speaking earlier while submitting the report of the panel to the Governor, Florence Duruoha-Igwe, chairman of the panel, explained that, out of the 350 petitions and memoranda received, the panel was able to hear, conclude and submit its report on 278.
“On that occasion, Your Excellency, graciously directed that, we return to work on the remaining 72 petitions and memoranda left unheard.
“You did not wish that any Abian should be sent home without being heard” Justice Duruoha-Igwe explained.
Duruoha-Igwe, informed the Governor that, the report was in 2 volumes; an addendum to the main report and an addendum to the proceedings and thanked the Governor for the opportunity to serve the State.
