Suspended Abia Health Commissioner, Ngozi Okoronkwo, Resigns
Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia
The suspended Abia State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ngozi Okoronkwo, has resigned from Governor Alex Otti’s cabinet, bringing to three the number of commissioners that have taken the exit door in just a week.
Okoronkwo, who had been on suspension since June 10, 2024, resigned yesterday, exactly a month and two weeks into her isolation from the government.
A statement issued release by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Ukoha Njoku Ukoha, said that the health commissioner “has tendered her resignation letter to the Governor of Abia State, Dr. Alex Otti.”
As in the previous resignations of commissioners, no reason was given for Dr. Okoronkwo’s resignation.
Ukoha said: “The governor, while accepting her resignation, thanked Dr. Okoronkwo for her services to our dear state and her modest achievements in repositioning the health sector for better service delivery in the last one year,” adding that Otti “wished her well in her future endeavours.”
Ukoha further stated that the governor “reiterated his commitment to the transformation of Abia State and reminded Abians that they gave him the mandate to assemble his team.”
According to him, the mandate given to Otti “includes hiring, suspending or sacking his appointees or rejigging and reshuffling his cabinet whenever the need arises for the sole purpose of delivering all his promises to the people.”
Okoronkwo, who was among the most popular commissioners in Otti’s team, was sent on suspension by the governor following alleged “gross misconduct.” But insiders had said that the said misconduct involved issues of lack of transparency and financial mismanagement.
Aside from clamping Okoronkwo into suspension, the governor also said that she was being investigated over the allegations leveled against her.
The Commissioner for Information and Culture, Mr. Okey Kanu, said that after Okoronkwo’s suspension that Otti’s “administration is painstaking in investigating and establishing facts of infractions or misconduct uncovered by its internal monitoring and feedback system”.
Since then, government has neither announced the conclusion of the investigation nor the result of its findings only for the embattled health commissioner to throw in the towel.
On July 18, 2024, both the Commissioner for Science and Technology, Mr. Chima Oriaku, and the Commissioner for Agriculture, Professor Monica Ironkwe, resigned their jobs simultaneously.
No reason has been given for the double resignations either the government or the commissioners concerned and now the third person has taken the same path.
