Killers of Abia State and Kalu’s sparkling Politics

By Odimegwu Onwumere

Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, former governor of Abia State, is not a controversial man, but due to his larger-than-life personality in Nigeria and around the world, people associate controversy with him, at any slight move he made. Evident is his return to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which primarily took place in his Igbere country home on January 16, 2013. He was issued with a membership card, supposedly emblazoned with the number – 9787945. Since then, opposition to his sparkling political philosophy has used the event to cause unnecessary attention to their ill-fated politics. Conversely, when it comes to controversy, we know the real controversial politicians in Abia State today. And they cause the unnecessary controversies in the political theatre of that state, because of their self-seeking purposes. We shall unveil them as we progress in this treatise.

In politics, Kalu is one politician who hates to destablise the peace of a people, but has never run away from confrontations. What would he get if was like those who cause conflict among his good people of Abia State? He wouldn’t think of doing that, let alone, harnessing it. But it is obvious that his return to the PDP has continued to jitter certain politicians in Abia State, so they are fanning the embers of political narrow-mindedness, which they are hatching, and when they must have lighted the inglorious light, they would say that it happened since Kalu returned to the PDP. This is just a case of giving a dog a bad name to hang her!

To make home that point, since the return of Kalu to the PDP, the Abia State Government and the state chapter of the party have been causing uproar where none should have existed. They have said many unprintable things against the dude, but in Kalu’s mature disposition in handling issues like this, he has refused to join them. Being a very amiable politician who believes in the Igbo philosophy of Biri Ka Mbiri (Live and let Live), Kalu has done sparkling things for those who are bald-facedly calling him a political orphan and want him dead.

But who could believe that almost all the people that went to the PDP national headquarters in Abuja to block what they thought was Kalu’s intention to return to the PDP, Kalu in his benevolence and sparkling politics of Live and let Live brought them back to the PDP one time or the other. For example, Prince Vincent Ogbulafor was a member of the ANPP. He once contested gubernatorial election against Kalu, but was made a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria during Kalu’s reign as Abia State governor, in the event that Kalu opened his hands and performed all inclusive government. Ogbulafor later joined the PDP; it was Kalu who opened doors for his rejoining the party.

Kalu was also happy to take Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe to the PDP and received him, after the later contested election on the platform of the ANPP in 2003. Senator Nkechi Nwaogu was in the ANPP, it was Kalu who brought her back to the PDP. What of Senator Uche Chukwumereiji who had been a political prostitute – once in ANPP and the other in APGA and all that? The unabashed Governor of Abia State was a political neophyte who did not know anything about politics all his life; it was Kalu who made him join the PPA. By this hint, would it be necessary to ask where Kalu offended these people who today do not want to sight him? Against this influence, many Nigerians had and have been doffing their caps and headtie for Kalu, as a sparkling politician, who is ready to die for those, who may not attend his funeral, because of their sheer prejudice.

Kalu’s return to the PDP was his fundamental right, no matter any contrary opinion. He did not cause any bridge to his sparkling personality nor that of the party. Remember he once said that the PDP was not for him if ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo was still the BoT of the party. Now, Obasanjo is not the BoT of the party, and Kalu deemed it right to walk his talk by going back to the PDP he was founding member in 1998. One salient comment that Kalu made in contradiction of those in the Abia State chapter of the PDP calling for his head about the authentication of the celebration of his return by the party in his Igbere country home is: “How can the whole executive of two wards resign? What was the reason they gave for resigning... Emma Nwaka (the Abia State PDP chairman) should take time. He is not the owner of PDP. We have come back to take over our party.” So, from where did those who said that Kalu was rejected by the party get their nosedived news from? It has become palpable that infinitesimal individuals in the Abia State chapter of the PDP had held the party down, so they were afraid of how Kalu rejoined with the PDP through a very lucid process, which they had found very hard to thwart.

What many of us had thought that these people fighting an already lost battle against Kalu could been doing was to find out how the allocations from the Federation Account to Abia State Government were expended, but for the lucre, they won’t. If not for their self-seeking purposes, they would have been expressing their lack of comfort in the Governor T.A Orji administration that has deprived the good people of Abia State the essentialities of democracy by his incessant imposition of anti-people’s policies. How could a governor of a state also operate as a contractor? Is it not only in Abia State that government award contracts without due conscientiousness? Are the major recipients of government contracts in Abia State not Governor T.A Orji, families and chronics?

Before T.A Orji and his bunch of yesmen kill Kalu (which of course they are brats to Kalu), can they tell us who the real owners of the following companies are? Investigations allegedly reveal that the companies lack both the financial and technical capacity to deliver the many projects that were awarded them, yet the government in Abia State still award them contracts without bathing the eyelid. Can Governor T. A Orji tell the good people of Abia State what he knows about the following companies that are alleged, are linked to him and family and cronies (directly and indirectly) and are being used to siphon the states funds?

Investigations alleged that (1) NGAME NIG. LTD is allegedly (working for the wife); (2) GLANO CONSTRUCTION is allegedly (owned by his brother in law); (3) CIREO NIG. LTD is allegedly (owned by his in law); (4) BENICOUX NIG. LTD, allegedly, bought Empire Hotel as BENIS HOTELS and allegedly (siphoning for Governor and Son- ikuku); (5) OKEY TECHNICAL LTD is allegedly (milking ASEPA for Orji’s Son, Ikuku); (6) SPRING INVEST AND PROPERTY CO. LTD, is allegedly furnished the Governor’s office with 56 million naira; (7) CHARBEL LTD, is allegedly (Lebanese constructing the conference centre and working for the Son, Ikuku); ( NEW IDEA, is allegedly (the master agent of siphoning); and (9) SEAMARK ELECT. CO. LTD is allegedly (Son’s).

If the claims above are anything to go by, could this be the reason Ogbulafor, Abaribe, Nwaogu, Chukwumereije and the arrowhead, Governor T.A Orji do not want Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu sighted around the business of governance in Abia State while claiming that PDP said this and that?