Saturday, October 25, 2014 3:26 pm
Dr Alex Otti who just resigned his appointment as the Group Managing Director/CEO of Diamond Bank Plc in order to pursue his gubernatorial ambition in the forthcoming Abia State election has argued that zoning is wrong in politics.
He said this because that is the major criticism against him by his opponents. Critics said Otti’s father originally came from Abia North but because he was a pastor, settled in Abia South (Aba side) where the governorship is zoned to.
He told journalists that it is true that his forebears came from Abia North, the home of the Arochukwus (the Aros), the most peripatetic Igbo sub-group.
“That is why you have Aro Ngwa, Arondizogwu and they are in Ajali in Anambra State.”
He wondered why people now talk about Abia North but not about the fact that he lived and buried his grandfather, father and mother in Abia South.
Otti argued that when people talk about zoning, it is all about sharing money not service, asking that when it was time to ask him to make sacrifices, zoning does not come but now when it is about governorship, “then they remember that my father came from Abia North.”
He added that that by the time “we all continue to trace our ancestry, we will discover that we all came from the Garden of Eden.”
After Otti’s resignation, the Board of the bank announced the appointment of Mr. Uzoma Dozie as its new Group Managing Director/CEO, which is subject to the approval of Central Bank of Nigeria CBN.
In an official statement released by the Bank’s Corporate Communications Department, Chairman of the Board of Directors, HRM Igwe Nnaemeka Alfred Achebe (the Obi of Onitsha) said the outgoing GMD/CEO will be sorely missed. Igwe Achebe extolled Dr. Alex Otti’s enviable achievements in the Bank, describing his tenure as “the brightest years of Diamond Bank’s 24 year-history”.
Under Dr. Alex Otti’s stewardship, the statement indicated that Diamond Bank made a remarkable return to profitability and has continued to record impressive growth across all performance indicators year-on-year. After writing off toxic risk assets which resulted in the loss of N16 billion in 2011, the Bank posted a profit before tax of N28.36 billion in 2012 and N32.5 billion Naira in 2013. The Bank also saw its total assets rise from N564.9 billion in February 2011 to N1.18 trillion by December 31, 2012 and N1.52 trillion on December 31, 2013.
Dr. Otti is, according to the statement, credited with creating the office of the Chief Risk Officer and designating an Executive Director to head the department. He also spearheaded the expansion of the Bank by doubling the full staff count from around 2,000 in 2010 to over 4,000 as at mid-2014 even as he vigorously grew the Bank’s footprints from a network of 210 branches in 2011 to over 265 branches 3 years later. It was also under his watch that the Bank established an international subsidiary in the United Kingdom, in addition to expansion in Francophone West Africa (Senegal, Togo, and Ivory Coast).
Join The Conversation