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Last week, the social media was abuzz that former governor of Abia State and senator-elect, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, had gone to meet the Venezuelan President, Nicholas Maduro, for an oil deal when indeed the much-vilified Kalu was on a three-nation peace- making initiative on the platform of the Orji Uzor Kalu Foundation, which he founded and promotes as a global tool for peaceful human existentialism, among other not-for-profit engagements. For purposes of argument, what is even wrong with such a trans- national business pursuit assuming that was the case? Enough of these asininities and imbecilities!
I am sure the oil deal speculation was fuelled by the earlier meeting Kalu had with Mr. Manuel Quevedo, Minister of Power for Petroleum and president of the Venezuelan-owned oil company, PDVSA, last weekend pursuant to a session with President Maduro, last Tuesday.
Let me reaffirm here that Kalu had known President Muhammadu Buhari and most other serving and retired top echelon of the Nigerian armed forces a long time ago at the prime of his youth. His association and irrevocable support for Buhari is not a function of anticipatory pecuniary benefits. It is a relationship that had taken President Buhari and the late Gen. Tunde Idiagbon to Kalu’s aristocratic country-home decades back when the two officers helds way in the country’s leadership. Kalu was just in his late 20s then—a feat that his peers and elders can only dream of.
The issue with Kalu is that he is misunderstood, misperceived and mismanaged. The matter is not helped by his visibility and vociferousness. Nobody talks about his philanthropic invaluableness, massive transnational employment creation, immeasurable political reengineering at various levels and capacities and inimitable national soccer development prowess, amid other institutional input to national transformation.
All that reaches decibel level is his case with EFCC that is following due legal process. It is as if he is the only former governor in the country making some explanations in court! So many former and present governors have worse cases than Kalu, but somehow his is the most celebrated for inexplicable reasons! Why Kalu has become the scapegoat remains a subject of sociological enquiry.
I strongly believe that Kalu has more detractors than any other politician in this country. There are former governors who are billionaires today whose church- rat antecedents question their current opulence. Kalu had a widely-known financial clout before coming into politics, which most of his governor-classmates never had. Most of them came from a background of abject poverty. It is un- fortunate that our country does not ask question show citizens come about their sudden wealth—especially after holding public offices between councillorship and governorship.
My consolation is from the evergreen and irrefutable declaration by Chief Richard Akinjide (SAN), a former Justice Minister and Attorney-General of the Federation, that most governors were the most corrupt of all politicians! Singling out Kalu for venomous media interjections and vituperative social media attacks can not diminish his ever-rising entrepreneurial and political ascent.
The most interesting aspect of the assaults on Kalu is that those who admire him and look up to him are far more than the invidious clan of haters. Similarly, the tribe of yarn spinners will soon extinguish through self destruction. Asfor Kalu, he will continue to flourish no matter the spanners thrown on his trajectories because he does not think evil of any- one. I know this full well by virtue of my personal and occupational relationships with him over the years.
If anyone contests these dispassionate interventions here, let us do a roll-call of all governors between 1999 and 2015 and get a consummate firm of auditors to carry out forensic analyses of all the monies that accrued to each of them and the expenditure outlay.
For how long are they going to keep sustaining this politically motivated bovine witch-hunt of OUK?
Constructive reactions with verifiable identities are welcome—not pseudonymous/fictitious trashes.
Can anyone forensically mention one person or benefit Kalu has derived from either his membership of the APC or affinity with President Muhammadu Buhari? All one gets to hear or read is gossip based on malicious suspicion and unwarranted hatred for the former governor.
When President Buhari predictably won the last election, some tomfools went to town, expectedly, that Kalu was lobbying him for a ministerial appointment based apparently on Kalu’s critical contributions to the president’s inevitable victory. I ask myself, do these charlatans know what it means to be a senator? How would a distinguished senator be clamouring to be a mere minister?
Why is it that Kalu is always the butt of vicious gossip? What makes him tick? Where do his illimitable accusers come from? Who sends them to be criminalising,demonising and calumniating this transnational entrepreneur? Are they envious of his Forbes’ rating as one of the 50 richest Africans?Jealousy will kill all Kalu’s traducers.
When recently the Court of Appeal ruled on the no-case submission filed by Kalu in his face-off with the EFCC, one Matthew Ibe stupidly took it on himself to interpret the court’s ruling and found space in a well-respected newspaper, The PUNCH, April 29, 2019, Page 16, to market his foolishness, ignorance and idiocy in Abuja of all places. Ibe, according to the newspaper, is the chairman of the PDP, Abia North. With this kind of character, the PDP will continue to flounder to extinction presently. It is only a question of time before the vanishing party becomes a moonlight tale relished by kindergartners—not even history for discerning minds!
