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Tag: Kalu

  • KALU UCHE HITS BRACE

    KALU UCHE HITS BRACE

    NIGERIA international Kalu Uche is now joint top scorer in Turkey after his brace earned Kasimpasa victory over Orduspor.

    The ex-UD Almeria of Spain striker is now joint top scorer in Turkey with 17 goals same as Galatasaray striker Burak Yilmaz.

    Uche, who has been recalled to the Super Eagles by coach Stephen Keshi, opened scoring for Kasimpasa in the 10th minute and completed his brace in the 42nd minute to give Kasimpasa a 2-0 win.

    Kasimpasa are now fourth on the table with 46 points from 30 games. They will be counting on more goals by the Nigeria striker to secure ticket for European football next season.

  • How to prevent disintegration, by Kalu

    How to prevent disintegration, by Kalu

    Former Abia State Governor Orji Kalu  spoke with reporters in Lagos on the Jonathan Administration, national security and the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Group Political Editor Emmanuel Oladesu was there.

     

    You said security agencies are responsible for throwing bombs in the northern part of the country. What informed your opinon?

    What I said is not new. Even, President Goodluck Jonathan once indicted the security agencies by saying there was Boko Haram in his cabinet. So, if there is Boko Haram in his cabinet, they should work on it. It is beyond carrying guns and standing on the road. I want the President to take the issue of insecurity seriously because it pains me as an Igbo man. It pains me as a southerner; it pains me as a Christian. It pains me because whenever there is a problem in Pakistan, they will go and kill Igbo in the North. They kill the southerners and kill the Christians for doing nothing. Whenever there is a problem in my village, Igbere, about Islam, they go and burn Igbo shops. This is unacceptable. I mean, we have lost more people than we did during the civil war. We cannot live in the same country and not go anywhere we want to go. The constitution gives us the right to live anywhere and go anywhere. I am calling on service, military and security chiefs to work on this matter. People should stop trivialising this matter because it is a serious one. President Jonathan came out openly and said there is Boko Haram in his cabinet. So, the security agencies should work on that and stop paying lip services to it.

    There was a prediction in the past of a possible break-up of Nigeria in 2015. Is this not worrisome to you?

    We have a lot of problems, but I have always said that, if we are all part of the problems, we should all be part of the solution. We should not allow a country like Nigeria to break up. We cannot allow that because it is not the right thing to do. We must understand that this country is our country and we must try and keep it together, no matter the price we have to pay. We have fought a civil war and no country that is intelligent enough fights a second civil war. We should talk about how to stabilise our economy. If our economy is stabilised, we can then talk of stabilising the polity. We are going front and backward because we have no strong economy.

    2015 is around the corner and people are saying there might not be 2015 elections…

    The person who made that prediction is a very good friend of mine, Mr John Negroponte. It is not only him that said that. Most American diplomats have been saying that over a long time. John Campbell has been warning Nigeria to be very careful. I am disturbed because the indices on the table show that if not properly handled, what the Americans are saying might come to pass. That is why I said we are all part of the problem and we should also be part of the solution. It is not too late to find a solution.

    Apart from the issue of insecurity, what are the majors problem bothering you?

    The massive corruption in the system. People are at all levels of government, from the local government to the Federal Government level, there is corruption everywhere. Besides, hunger is a major problem here. I am only telling those who claim to be leaders to lead with conscience. They should give the middle class and the poor justice. In any system that there is no fairness and justice, that system will collapse. In Nigeria, there is no justice and fairness.

    But there are so many anti-corruption agencies in the country fighting corruption…..

    Most of those agencies are not even doing any work. They are not even addressing the issues involved at all. If people like me are taken to court, it means there’s no anti-corruption because I have no reason to be in court. They know those that are supposed to be there. I leave everything to the court, since the matter is in a court of competent jurisdiction. I accept it as my fate. Even the day I was born, God knew I will go to court for these things.

    You are coordinating an anti-corruption war in Africa. How is the programme?

    We are still working on the programme. We are supposed to be in South Africa in May. We are working out the modalities with all stakeholders- the European Union, the United Nations, some diplomats from the United States and other Western countries. Since government agencies in Africa have failed to fight corruption, we are trying to use the non-governmental agencies to fight corruption. You can see people who became ministers, governors and President who never owned anything. They have never been in business. You see retired Army Generals, who own billions of naira; their salaries couldn’t have been that. So, it is everywhere. When we talk about corruption, people think it is only those in government. If you see what is happening at the federal and state government levels, you will know that most of the things they say are jokes. It is not good for people you entrusted with public funds to begin to steal it. It is not good and I never supported such. If you are for the government, they will not prosecute you. If you are saying the truth; because I can never be against the government; every other thing will fail but the truth will remain the truth. We fought third term; we said no to third term and I am sure those are some of the reasons I am where I am today but it’s not a regrettable thing.

    You were in office for eight years and you can be said to have seen it all. As we match towards 2015, what are your fears?

    My fears are that Nigerians might march out one day and what happened in Romania will happen here. If our leaders are not able to come together and address our problems. My fear is that we are gradually coming to a point where anybody can do anything he likes. That is what we are seeing. There seems to be no more law and order, which is not supposed to be. We must have a strong Army and a strong Police. For any country that wants to survive must not play politics with the Armed Forces. It is the pride of any nation. Any nation that does not give its Armed Forces a place of honour is not a serious nation. So, we should just stop using the army for little things. They should be on standby. We should have a quality mobile police force and enforce law and order to ensure the growth of our society.

    In 14 years of democracy, what have politicians done to restore hope for the future?

    They have done nothing. They are even worse today. That’s the truth.

    What are the qualities of the president you are looking for in 2015?

    Well, most of you continue to think of civil servants and all these people but the president I am looking for is one that can make a decision; a president that can stand and say I have made this decision, whether it is right or wrong.

    Do you agree that the governors have constituted a very powerful cabal?

    I do not agree that they are very powerful. The constitution has given them very powerful roles to play. The seat of the governos is very powerful and that of the President of Nigeria is the most powerful in the world. The president can wake up and do anything he likes. I have called for a review of the powers since I became a governor in 1999.

    How do we remedy that?

    The National Assembly is not making laws that will benefit the people. They are making laws that benefit themselves. Until the National Assembly makes laws to put themselves in part time, abolish one chamber of the Assembly and have only one chamber, we cannot make progress. We cannot be spending 25 per cent of our income on only 469 people. Even the US Congress is not earning the kind of money we are spending here. Our lawmakers should be able to sit on part-time basis.

    Your support immunity clause removal…

    They should remove immunity. Even as a sitting governor, I called for the removal. If a governor has committed an offence, he should go to court. They said they will have many lawsuits, why not? The minister, does he have immunity? Has he had so many lawsuits? People must respect the laws of the land. The Constitution must specify how anybody does anything. I don’t believe there should be immunity for anybody. You should be prosecuted if you do anything. When Bill Clinton was President, he was prosecuted. That immunity did not stop them. I believe we should start being an open society. We are too closed; we are not a communist country. We should be open, not claim to be open. If we continue this way, what people are saying might happen. There might be a re-think of Nigerian ethnic groups, which is not good for the country.

  • Kalu: my fears for 2015

    Former Abia State Governor Orji Kalu has expressed his fears for 2015.

    He urged the government to rise up to the challenge of good governance.

    The former governor said in 2015, Nigeria will need a decisive president, who can make effective decisions for the polity.

    Kalu, a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, spoke in Lagos on the state of the nation.

    He warned against taking Nigerians for a ride, stressing that they could revolt in a manner that would jolt the government.

    The former governor also criticised the immunity for the president and governors, saying they should not be insulated from prosecution.

    He said: “My fears are that Nigerians might march on the roads one day, if our leaders are not able to address the issues.

    “My fear is that we are gradually coming to a point where anybody can do anything he likes.

    “Law and order have broken down, which is not what things are supposed to be.

    “We must have a strong army and police. Any country that wants to survive should not joke or play politics with the Armed Forces.

    “It is the pride of any nation. Any nation that does not give its Armed Forces a place of honour is not a serious nation.

    “So, we should stop using the Army for little things. They should be on stand by.

    “We should have a quality police force and enforce rule of law to ensure the growth of our society.”

    Kalu blamed politicians for disappointing the polity, lamenting that they have not done enough for the people in the last 14 years.

    The former governor applauded the birth of the All Progressives Congress (APC), remarking that a two-party system was being restored to the country.

    He said: “It is a good thing we are having an alternative party. It is good for the country.

    “That also shows that Ibrahim Babangida was a visionary leader.

    “ I have always said that we need two parties, not three.

    “The PDP must look for the people; people don’t look for parties. But I am sure that, with the tour of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur to all the zones, the PDP will be better.”

     

  • ABSU and the revocation of Kalu’s certificate

    ABSU and the revocation of Kalu’s certificate

    The recent revocation of the degree certificate of the former Abia State governor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu by the authorities of Abia State University Uturu, Abia State was not the first of its kind in the country. Before now some universities had after many years of graduation revoked the degree certificates of people whom they discovered that the award of such degrees contravened the laid down procedures for admission and graduation from the universities.

    The university, like any other academic institutions, has the right to revoke the certificate awarded to people, whenever it was discovered that they were wrongly awarded. Nothing stops the authorities from taking such action; not even the number of years such certificates have been awarded. So there is no sentiment in the issuance and revocation of certificate awarded by any institution because every institution has a well laid down law, procedures, rules and regulations guiding admission, academic, non-academic curriculum and graduation from the institution which is being handed over to applicants upon admission.

    Recently, the West African Examination Council (WAEC), after four years, cancelled the certificates of about 200 persons who sat for their examination at Ogudu Senior Grammar School Ojudu GRA Ojota Lagos after discovering that there were irregularities in the award of the certificates. Some of the affected persons are in their final year in universities and the heaven did not fall. What matters most is that the onus lies on the affected persons to prove the authority wrong by providing substantial evidence before the court that the certificates were not wrongly awarded to them. Many had fought such battles in the past. While some lost, others with incontrovertible evidence to substantiate their cases won them.

    As for the case of Kalu and Abia State University authority, the ball is in Kalu’s court to prove the authority wrong by providing substantial evidence before the court to show that he was properly admitted and that he graduated from the university, while in office as governor of the state and visitor to the university.

    Trying to link the revocation to political victimisation by the state government is puerile because the university is made up of renowned professors and academics who are not politicians and who know the implications of revoking a degree after many years of awarding it. Unless Kalu wants the world to believe that he arm-twisted the university authority to award him the degree while in office as the governor even when he knew he did not merit such, he should come clean with the transcript issued to him by the University of Maiduguri which he used for inter-university transfer into the Abia State University and even the O’ level certificate he used to secure admission into the University of Maiduguri in the first place.

    So many things are at stake in this situation that need to be cleared by Kalu if he wants Nigerians to believe him that he is being victimised by the university authority. The university authority in their various advertorials had justified their action based on the law that established the university academic programme; the onus is now on Kalu to prove otherwise. University degree is not a common product that could be easily purchased. It takes time, resources, discipline and hard work for one to acquire it.

    It could be recall that in 2002 when the news broke that Kalu was writing degree examination in Abia State University, Olusegun Adeniyi, the then editor of Thisday wrote an article on the back page of the newspaper titled “Eze Goes To School” where he raised a lot of questions on the propriety of Kalu being a student of ABSU, writing degree examination and at the same time serving as the governor of the state and visitor to the university.

    Adeniyi in the article had asked some pertinent questions such as when Kalu was admitted into the university, his choice of the state university and what time did he has as a governor to attend lectures, even on part-time basis if it is assumed that he was admitted as a part time student. Not many Nigerians took Adeniyi’s fears then very serious, rather he was attacked by Kalu’s media aides.

    From the way the saga is unfolding today, it appears that Adeniyi and other Nigerians who saw the development from his perspectives might be vindicated at the end of the day, unless something otherwise happens to prove the university authority wrong. Accusing the state government of inciting the university to revoke his certificate is nothing but shadow chasing. The situation goes beyond Kalu’s political differences with any body. It is academic matter that should be sorted out academically and legally, not politically.

    Before now prominent Nigerians who were accused of forging certificates or illegally acquiring certificates in the past have taken the matters to court to clear their names. Former Kogi State Governor Ibrahim Idris was once accused of not having school certificate, while being admitted as a law student at University of Abuja. His lawyers took the matter to court and WAEC officials were in court to testify that he obtained a school certificate from a secondary school in Bayelsa State many years ago. Such allegation of certificate forgery was also leveled against Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue State. Today, Suswan has won the case at High court and the Appeal Court and is ready to meet his accuser at the Supreme Court.

    Kalu and his sympathisers should stop pointing accusing fingers at anybody or group as being responsible for the certificate saga. Rather, they should face the reality by doing everything to clear his name from the mess if he is sure of the genuineness of his admission and graduation from the university. Any other thing contrary is bunkum; not even Barrister Amobi Nzelu’s recent claim that he wanted to go to court for Kalu but was discouraged by a Professor from the university who said it was not necessary. How will Nzelu expect Nigerians to fall for such gimmicks? Or is it that Kalu has no evidence to upturn his revoked degree certificate in court?

    So if Kalu is not sure of himself and does not have enough evidence to challenge the decision in court, he and his allies should keep quiet and accept the decision in good faith. Meanwhile, all eyes are on Kalu to respond to the university’s decision by taking urgent action to redeem his battered image.

    • Dr. Ozoubi wrote Bwari Abuja

  • ‘There was no shooting in Kalu’s house’

    The Abia State Government has said there was no shooting at the country home of former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu.

    Speaking in Umuahia, the Commissioner for Information, Eze Chikamnayo, said the office of governor, which Kalu had earlier occupied, must be respected and that the administration has no plans to denigrate it.

    Chikamnayo said the former governor is trying to make the state ungovernable.

    The commissioner said Kalu is only trying to whip up sentiments by saying there was shooting at the gate of his Igbere home.

    Unknown gunmen at the weekend stormed Kalu’s home, shooting the bus in which one of his aides was travelling in.

    Police spokesman Geoffrey Ogbonna said the police headquarters is yet to be briefed on the incident.

     

     

  • Kalu and Abia politics

    Kalu and Abia politics

    Of recent, the media has been inundated with the infantile vituperation of some journalists of Lagos based media trying to defend their benefactor, former Governor Orji Kalu, who likes to seek attention where none exists.

    I have read the accounts presented variously by the media and I am able to decipher that they are all headed in one direction, to create noise in abundance. But it is not his fault, he wants to divert attention by mocking at our collective and corporate intelligence. Are those noise makers not aware that their benefactor is now gallivanting in a political valley and wilderness, and therefore seeking desperately to gain undue attention by telling them to attempt a comparison between him and Governor Theodore Orji?

    No amount of money can purchase integrity because it is not a commodity. What I find difficult to understand is why Kalu thinks he can always fool all the people all the time. He is angry because he has failed to supplant the incumbent governor of the state with his former deputy; he was beaten flat in his own game. In as much as we want to set records straight, I will try to avoid replying him and his workers word for word because doing so will give him undue attention and comfort since his motive is mainly to be seen as someone who is in popularity contest with a sitting governor.

    The rejection of Kalu both in PDP and Abia is not the fault of Governor Orji but his own fault and everybody knows why. Today, he is saying he left PDP because of Obasanjo, tomorrow he will say Jonathan is a bad man and the next time he will abuse PDP and Orji, all to no avail. Governor Orji was a civil servant and was later redeployed to Government House where he played the role of an administrative and intellectual back bone of Kalu’s government to the extent that he was considered good enough to become governor, at a time the EFCC and Obasanjo were at the heels of Kalu. This led to his incarceration since Kalu was under immunity while Ochendo (Orji) was presumed to have had prior knowledge of the financial recklessness of Kalu. Everybody knew Ochendo’s incarceration was a blessing in disguise because without it he could have failed in that election. The massive support he received was as a result of protest vote in Abia State and not because of Kalu.

    Governance is soldier go, soldier come, and not a private estate of any man, who is trying by all means to reckon with the elites of Abia State, who have, in conjunction with the people of Abia, said with one loud voice, ‘enough” of politics of brigandage in Abia’.

     

    •Onyechere is Special Adviser, Public Communication to Abia State Governor, Theodore Orji

  • ‘Kalu has not returned to PDP’

    ‘Kalu has not returned to PDP’

    Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and Special Adviser to Abia State Governor on Public Relations Mr. James Okpara spoke on the controversial return of the former governor, Orji Kalu, to the party and other issues. AUGUSTINE AVWODE met him.

     

    Former Governor Orji Kalu of Abia State said he has returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The state government said he has not returned. Who should the public believe?

    The PDP chairman in Abia State, the chairman of PDP in Bende Local Government Area and other party leaders and stakeholders have addressed this matter. Former Governor Orji Kalu is not a bonafide member of the PDP. The party card he is brandishing is fake. It is not genuine. The reasons are very simple and I will enumerate them. First, every ward has its own serial number and the number of Orji Kalu’s purported card is different from the number series allocated to his ward by the party. Second, there is a register of PDP members and Orji Kalu’s name is not in this register. Can you validly be a member of an association without your membership being registered in the register of members?

    But the ward chairman of the party and other executive members issued the card. How then can it be fake?

    The ward chairman and other executive members who purportedly gave him the card were no longer members of the PDP on the date they gave him the card. Can you give out what you don’t have? In a resolution of November 14, 2012 by members of the Bende PDP, it was unanimously agreed that Orji Kalu shall not be readmitted into the party. The Igbere ward chairman, who purportedly gave him the membership card, attended the meeting and signed the resolution. I should ask you, can you be a member of two different political parties at the same time? Kalu is the founder and owner of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA). Can he be a member of PPA and that of PDP at the same time? The answer is no.

    As a lawyer, don’t you think that, by rejecting Kalu’s readmission into PDP, the state government is infringing on his fundamental right or freedom of association?

    It is wrong to imply that the rejection of his purported readmission back to PDP is being driven by the state government. It is his own people, those who belong to the same constituency with him that vehemently said no way when rumours were strong that he was planning to come back to PDP. The The stakeholders of the party from Bende have, in at least, two separate occasions, unanimously stated that they do not want Orji Kalu in their party.

    We are talking of the freedom of association…

    Don’t you think that the freedom of association of 99.9 per cent of PDP members in Bende council area will be breached by the readmission of Orji Kalu into their party? Have you read the resolution of Bende stakeholders on the matter? The Bende PDP members, in their resolution of November 14, 2012, stated that “the constitution and the extant laws of Nigeria recognizes freedom of association. That friendship or association is by choice and not by compulsion, fiat or coercion”. In order words, you cannot force me to be your friend or associate with you. You have the right to say that you want to associate with me, but in the spirit of freedom of association, I have the right to say sorry, I do not want to be your friend or associate with you. Friendship or association should not be by force. And we can say that political association or political friendship shouldn’t be by force.

    But why this opposition to a former governor’s desire to return to the party, on which platform he ruled the state for eight years?

    During his administration, there was no development in Abia State. Government affairs became a family business. Let Orji Kalu take you round Abia State and point out one thing that he did in his eight years in power. Our people are tired of quarrels and distractions.

     

     

    But many people will say the present administration has not fared better in terms of developing the state. The refrain is that nothing is happening in Abia.

    No, that is not true. Honestly, I am not saying this because I work for Governor Theodore Orji. The governor is doing an excellent work in Abia State . This is one of the distractions we are talking about. Some people have been specifically instructed to run down the governor and his government. Let those who are alleging non-performance by the present administration come to Abia and see things for themselves.

  • Pray, who is afraid of Kalu’s return?

    Pray, who is afraid of Kalu’s return?

    First, it was a band of politicians who claimed to be from former Governor Orji Uzor Kalu’’s Igbere community lamenting his then planned return to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    Not long afterwards, the state chairman of the party, Chief Emma Nwaka, came out and rejected Kalu’s claims, insisting that the former governor had not been readmitted into the PDP in the state.

    Then the leadership of the party in his Local Government Area that protested his eventual return. And just yesterday, the zonal leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-East joined the fray and kicked against his reported readmission into the party.

    The National Vice-Chairman of PDP, Col Austin Akobundu (rtd), even said Kalu is unknown to the zone as a member of the party. He did not mince words in saying the ex-Governor is not welcomed in the PDP.

    While the controversy rage, with the man in the middle of the storm, Kalu insisting on his return to his former party, observers are left to worry over the reasons why Akobundu and others may be bent on keeping Kalu out of the PDP.

    Or is it that some people are actually afraid of his return as he claimed in a recent interview? If this is the case, then the question to ask would be ‘who is afraid of Kalu’s return?

     

  • Kalu’s desperation to return to PDP

    Kalu’s desperation to return to PDP

    Who says leopard can change her colours anymore than a snake can give birth to anything short? The aphorism best describes and captures the recent cowboy show by former governor of Abia state, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu when he arranged his allies at his home in Igbere to present to him what he claimed was a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) membership card.

    Kalu’s recent show appeared to be the last of his political gimmicks, a desperation to force his way back to PDP, a party he has criticised and destroyed before now, when he was in control of the state resources. Before now, Kalu had made two failed attempts to return to PDP. First was when Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo assumed office as the national chairman of the party and Kalu was losing grip of the government of his state with Governor Theodore Orji’s exit from Progressive Peoples’ Alliance (PPA) which was Kalu’s political party. What Kalu adduced as his reason then was that his return to PDP was in fulfilment of the promise he made to Nwodo that he would return to the party if Nwodo emerged national chairman of the party. After his unsolicited visit to Nwodo at the party national headquarters in Abuja in 2010, the party leadership shut the door against Kalu and his allies. That was how he went and contested the Abia North senatorial election on PPA platform and lost woefully to Senator Uche Chukwumerije of PDP. After the election, Kalu said that he was no longer interested in active politics. It did not take him long to resurface again with another trick under the guise of Njiko Igbo. He shouted to whosoever cared to listen to him that Njiko Igbo is a non-political platform to unite the Igbos ahead 2015 general election, so that Igbo presidency would be actualised. He pretended as if he was not interested in joining any political platform, while it is an open secret that he was busy nurturing his dead empire called PPA.

    While the Igbos are keenly waiting to see how far Kalu can unite the Igbos through his Njiko Igbo platform for the actualisation of the Igbo Presidency in 2015, the news of yet another of Kalu’s secret plot to return to PDP through the backdoor broke. Protests by the party major stakeholders in the state to the national leadership of the party nipped the plot in bud and the door was shut against him again. Kalu’s hatchet writers took on the party stakeholders in the state especially Governor Theodore Orji for questioning the plot to re-admit Kalu into the party through the backdoor without consulting them. Some of them in their write-ups in defence of Kalu suggested that he has not told anybody that he wanted to return to PDP; but rather that he was busy with his Njiko Igbo for the unity of the Igbos.

    Known for inconsistency, it did not take long for Kalu and his allies to come up with another subterfuge of registering him as PDP member in his house in Igbere. Even the former governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose was not re-admitted into PDP by being registered in his house, rather he was transparently re-admitted by the national leadership of the party. But the question is why Kalu’s desperation to return to PDP by all means and at the same nurturing PPA for dirty jobs?

    It is obvious that he has some tricks up his sleeves that might be detrimental to the party successes in 2015. That is why the party must apply caution and look deep into Kalu’s antics.

    Kalu and his allies have been trying to rewrite the PDP history in order to justify his recent moves. This is even when most of the 18 founders of the party who are automatic members of Board of Trustees of the party are still alive. Kalu said that his action was prompted by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s resignation as (BoT) Chairman of the party and that his other co-founders of the party have been calling him to return to the party.

    Every Nigerian who is a good student of political history knows that Kalu was not among the founders of PDP. He was brought into the party alongside some of his colleagues who were governors between 1999-2007 by the retired military oligarchy led former President Ibrahim Babangida and General Theophilus Danjuma who hijacked the party from the original founders to ensure that Chief Obasanjo, who was just released from prison, emerged the presidential candidate of the party at the party’s national convention in Jos. This was against the popular choice of Chief Alex Ekwueme, one of the founders of the party. Kalu and some of his colleagues were the foot soldiers of the retired generals in the party. So it is wrong for Kalu to claim that he is a founding member of the party. The records are there for Kalu to factually dispute, and failure to do so amounts to deceit.

    Most times, what matters most or challenging is not the building of a house, but the maintenance of such house. Imagine how PDP would have been today if some people have not stayed back in the party to rebuild it for better. If most members had toed the line of Kalu, only to force their way back into the party after their selfish ventures have failed them, the party would have gone into extinction by now. Shutting Kalu permanently out of the party will not only instil discipline in the party, it will serve as deterrent to other members who might contemplate toeing Kalu’s line. Readmitting Kalu into the party under any disguise will do more harm to the party than good, especially in Abia State because Kalu as at today has no political value or structure to bring into the party.

     

    • Omeneogor, a system analyst wrote from Houston USA

  • Ndigbo and Kalu’s call for unity

    Ndigbo and Kalu’s call for unity

    Unity is something that is essential in the Igbo mythology. This is why every family, kindred and village in ala-Igbo always meet in their different soirees to discuss issues bothering on their welfares. The Igbo knows the importance of unity, and the forebears had a proverb that says, no one can break a bunch of broom, but it is easy to break just one broom.

    For the umpteenth time, the former Governor of Abia State is calling on the Igbo to unite, irrespective of their political affiliations and associations. He has been reaching out to Igbo people both at home and in the Diaspora. From Cambodia to Canada he has not hidden his voice for this noble act. He is of the belief that the Igbo might not have gotten it right in the past, but are capable of getting it right this time. All it will take is just unity.

    What makes his call unique is the neutral position he has taken in making sure that this is achieved. But this does not make him not to support any political party in Nigeria that would zone the 2015 presidential ticket to Ndigbo. This is what Kalu sees as the fundamental objective of his, since Ndigbo are not in dearth of credible and dynamic persons that the presidency of the country can be entrusted on.

    Being over qualified to be president of Nigeria and with their wealth of entrepreneurship, Ndigbo can ever boast of the sagacity and dexterity to lead Nigeria. This is the bane of Kalu: why a people with such charisma cannot be allowed to mount the exalted number one seat in the Nigeria’s political positions. And it is time Ndigbo came together and avoid trading blames of the seemingly past that can never re-emerge in the existence of man.

    Kalu would tell anybody who doubts the stuff the Igbo are made of that they have made name in virtually all the areas of man’s endeavours. Is it in the business, politics, academia and benevolence, the Igbo have always hold the mace, but have not been allowed the pronouncedly lead Nigeria.

    In the area of doing everything humanly possible for the wellbeing of Nigeria, the Igbo have always put in their legs. They have always expressed their republican nature in the amalgam that is called Nigeria by voting people of different ethnic backgrounds overwhelmingly. Amongst others, they voted for Chief M.K.O. Abiola (when he was alive) and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in the 1993 and 1999/2003 presidential elections. They have also shown the same affability in them to President Goodluck Jonathan by mobilising and voting for him without blemish in the 2011 elections and as well have stood by him till date, in affirming the Igbo aphorism that says, Igwe bu ike.

    But there is chagrin on the face of Kalu that the Igbo cannot always be in unity, only when they want to support an ‘outsider’. They have to support their own and guide their integrity with every thud of responsibility. For this reason, from the USA to UK, Kalu has been mobilising for the unity of the Igbo. Many people have expressed and given him their support for this Igbo unity crusade, while few persons

    are still swimming in the pool of political brigandage against their Igbo kiths and kins, because of the infinitesimal derivations they get from the powers that are, especially in Aso Rock, the Nigeria’s seat of power.

    Ndigbo have to parley without equivocation for their unity. Ndigbo must solicit for the support of this unity project with unflinching support to the Igbo cause. No matter how anybody might be looking at it, Kalu has always fought for a selfless cause. One was when he rocked as the president, Student Union Government of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State.

    It could be recalled that he refused the offer by the school authority to pardon him alone during the remonstration of the SUG that saw to many students being hounded out of the school.

    Just as he is going everywhere telling the Igbo to come together and unite, so also he refused to be solely pardoned by the University of Maiduguri, saying that unless everyone involved in the march was pardoned. His function in shopping for the formation of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) cannot be easily forgotten. The likes of Dr. Alex Ekwueme, late S.M. Afolabi, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and Aliyu Gwarzo, among others, would always thumb up for Kalu for his political wizardry.

    Today, the party has become a party that has produced the highest political office holders since 1999 democracy was restored in the country. It is therefore very aplomb to applaud the commitment of Kalu in making sure that the Igbo is united to further the promotion of Nigeria. Kalu has got what it takes to unite the Igbo no matter any gainsaying opinion. He has got the contacts beyond party and ethnic linings.

    Onwumere is the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV)