Abia State governor, Alex Otti, has revealed has revealed plans to recruit additional 4,000 teachers to raise the teaching workforce to 9,394.in the State’s primary and secondary schools.

The governor disclosed this during the June edition of his media chat, dubbed Governor Alex Otti speaks to Abians”, held on Thursday night at the Government House, Umuahia.

He said that the 5,394 first set of teachers already recruited would be deployed after their ongoing orientation in Aba and Umuahia.

According to him, the next set of recruitment will happen immediately after this orientation.

“We expect that the portal will be opened and applications will be received,” he said.

Otti said that the idea was to prepare the schools for the next academic session, given the massive enrollment witnessed since the introduction of free and compulsory education.

The government, in January, introduced free and compulsory education from primary one to junior secondary school.

The policy is to ensure that every child in Abia, regardless of their state of origin, had access to education up to the junior secondary school.

Otti emphasised the need to prepare and ensure quality teachers for primary and secondary schools across the State.

He reiterated his administration’s commitment to continue with the renovation of schools, including the tertiary institutions.

“In addition to the renovation, we are converting 20 schools into smart schools and work is already ongoing,” he said.

The governor also spoke on the government’s activities in the health sector.

He gave assurance that the ongoing renovation of 200 primary healthcare centres across the 17 local government areas of the State would soon be completed and that most of them were ready for use.

“The type of equipment you are expecting to see in the developed countries are already in Abia and we are not opening them without equipping them properly,” he said.

Otti, who highlighted some of his administration’s achievements in other sectors, including security, road infrastructure, sanitation and others, urged the residents to join hands with the administration in building a new Abia.

The Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja on Thursday granted the Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District, Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, bail in the sum of N50 million and one surety who must be a person of reasonable integrity resident in FCT Abuja and owns a landed property within the Abuja Municipal Area Council.

A former Vice President, Architect Namadi Sambo, has officially decamped from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC), unconfirmed reports claim.

Sambo served as Vice President of Nigeria from May 19, 2010 to May 29, 2015 under the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

Before then, he had also served as Governor of Kaduna State from 2007 to 2010.

Sambo has become the latest high-profile politician to dump the PDP for the APC in the build-up to the 2027 general elections.