Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, has assured residents of a stronger economic future for the state in 2026, announcing that the government will begin offsetting accumulated gratuity arrears dating back to the early 2000s. Mistakes may have been made in times past, but the New Year is an invitation to begin again, this time on a clean slate. In the New Year, we shall consolidate the gains of the last 31 months to further expand our system of advantages. As we did in the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, we have also committed 20 per cent of our entire budgetary outlay to the education sector in 2026. Our objective is to consolidate the gains we have made in the last two and a half years in repositioning the education sector for relevance in the new age,” he said.

Source: Punch January 01, 2026 13:17 UTC