Abia State Governor, Dr Alex Otti has sworn in nine additional Permanent Secretaries and nine new Special Advisers into the State Civil Service to be part of the reform and Restoration Agenda of the State Government.
Also inaugurated is the Chairman and members of the Abia State Drug Control Committee and Chairman and members of the Local Government Service Commission.
Speaking while performing the ceremony at the Banquet Hall, Government House, Umuahia, Governor Otti while congratulating the newly sworn in Permanent Secretaries, said their selection was a product of a rigorous process, noting that the emergence of yet another non south Easterner as permanent Secretary shows that the new Abia is all about competence and not necessarily about one’s State of origin.
The Governor whose speech is entitled “Service, Duty and Privilege” said his administration’s goal is to collectively create a State that works for the people.
He said that members of the newly inaugurated local Government Service Commission are people who have excelled in their previous assignments and urged them to be committed to their new responsibilities for greater services to Ndi-Abia.
The Governor said that the Commission is very important now that the State has elected Mayors and their councilors at the Council Areas, in addition to the pronouncement of Local Government Autonomy by the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
On the newly inaugurated Chairman and members of the Abia State Drug Control Committee headed by the wife of the Governor Mrs Priscilla Otti, the Governor said the Committee is key to the social restoration agenda of his administration and in line with his determination to nipping in the bud the menace of drug abuse.
Governor Otti said his Government is very passionate in working with relevant stakeholders in winning the war against drug abuse and other Social vices.
In their responses on behalf of others, Mr Ndubuisi Ike and Elder James Nwokocha while thanking Governor Otti for considering them fit for the new assignments, promised to be active partners of the Governor’s vision of a better and reformed state.
The Abia State Drug Control Committee has the wife of the Governor, Mrs Priscilla Otti as Chairman, the SSG, Professor Kenneth Kalu, Commissioner for Information, Prince Okey Kanu, the Director Amaudo Integrated Mental Health Foundation, the Rev Kenneth Nwaubani and thirty four others as members, while the Abia State Local Government Service Commission has Elder James Nwokocha and six others as members.
The nine newly sworn in permanent Secretaries are Ehiemere Chibuzo, Jane Ngarasi, Ihemanma Okechukwu, Ekeoma Chigozie Akidi, Ekaete Eyo Oham, Ekwueme Emmanuel, Jane Olanma, Juliet Okeziem and Ukandu Obinma.
Our Correspondent reports that the Deputy Governor, Chief Ikechukwu Emetu and wife, Adaeze, Secretary to Abia State Government, Prof. Kenneth Kalu, Chief of Staff to the Governor, Pastor Caleb Ajagba and other top Government functionaries witnessed the ceremony.
