Our attention has been drawn to a malevolent article – Abia Imbroglio: Blame T.A Orji - published in Sun Newspaper of Saturday, July 9, 2016 in Orji Kalu insipid Leadership Series wherein as usual he tried fruitlessly to give artificial respiration to his already faded political image with his baseless and uncorroborated allegations of non performance and perfidy against the immediate past governor of Abia State and Senator representing Abia Central Senatorial District, Senator Theodore Ahamefule Orji.
Though clandestine, we need not to be psychical to understand that Kalu’s recent ludicrous article was driven by fear of inevitable political oblivion staring at his face; hence the need to ingeniously inveigle himself into the affections of Abians who had been punishing him retributively with their votes in every election year.
Being aware of his predicament therefore, our response is not to dignify him but to re-state the facts unadulterated for the public to see the repulsiveness in the character called Orji Uzor Kalu.
In his self-defeating article where he accused Sen. Orji of committing some disgraceful acts which as usual he failed to mentioned, Kalu wrote: “Unknown to many of us, Chief Orji had a hidden agenda which he pursued with ferocious deter¬mination but pretentious mien. He pretended he was a team player, while deep inside he harboured some dangerous and wicked in¬tentions. One beautiful thing about my relationship with this man is that I have always treated him fairly and tried, at each moment, not to bring his iniquities to the public domain.”
From antecedents, this claim is preposterous for garrulous Kalu who is very susceptible to keeping secretes. What is pernicious in telling the world what exactly Sen. Orji did to him if not that such disclosure will expose his unconventional behavior and infamy to the world? Of course it will be indistinguishable as self-immolation for Kalu to tell the world that the iniquities of his successor, Sen. Orji were his refusal to continue the gratification of his long list of personal and family wants totaling a whopping sum of N116 million monthly, designed to cater for his charted flights, his mother and siblings up keeps as well as the maintenance of his residential buildings at Igbere, Lagos and Abuja respectively.
Of course facts are sacrosanct as events have shown that six years after his fallout with Sen. Orji, Kalu has converted most of his buildings to hotels, while plans are on the horizon to convert his Igbere luxury home to resort for tourists. Surprised! Certainly, when one considers the fact that he never built one tourist centre in Abia State in his eight years of misrule. Unless in his usual stage management approach he has planned to cajole the tourists to come watch (Okonko), an annual Igbere masquerade festival.
For a man who apart from taken the entire Sen. Orji’s initial security vote, also conspired with Zerock Engineering company (which he introduced and insisted should handle all road projects in Abia State), to divert the sum of N2 billion awarded for the construction of Ossa access road to Umuahia and another N500 million for the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt road Aba under false pretext, to claim thus: “Chief Orji deliberately refused to develop Aba so that the city would deteriorate to such a level that the people would be turned against me……..” shows the charlatanism in the character called Orji Kalu.
One had expected Orji Kalu to turn a new leaf after attaining the respectable age of 55, but a recent fraud case where he and his Slok group, connived and defrauded Diamond Bank and Asaa Energy and Engineering Services LTD the sum of N200 million diverted to a sister company’s account from the N1billion loan granted by Diamond bank for the construction of Tank Farm at ikot-Abasi Akwa-Ibom State has shown that the same young man who nine years ago duped Sen. Orji and former Anambra State Governor colossal amount of money budgeted for tribunal and almost succeeded in duping former Enugu State Governor for the same purpose has shown that he has not changed. For the avoidance of doubt, we will not hesitate to make the documents available for public consumption in subsequent reply if Kalu does not desist from using Sen. Orji’s name for political relevance.
We cannot help but laughed when Kalu, in his ill-fated column asserted thus: “In fact, it took us just three months to clear the backlog of salaries and build the first set of four roads that transformed Enyimba City…….. Aba for instance, received due attention. Without sounding immodest, our government built over 120 roads in the city, which propelled de¬velopment and set it on the path of economic buoyancy.”
Balderdash! If nothing else, this bogus assertion has made caricature of Kalu’s acclaimed wittiness. How plausible is this claim when all the roads in Aba- Enyimba city- put together are a little bit above 300 kilometers? What are the names and locations of these roads? Mtcheww! It is very contemptible that Kalu still plays this same anachronistic political game which he fooled Abians with for eight years in this contemporary era replete with scientific research and generalization. No wonder he lost woefully in all the elections he had contested with every Tom, Dick and Harry.
Kalu further claimed in his wishy-washy article to be very popular and even challenged Sen. Orji for a walk round the city of Aba. Can you imagine such a childish way of testing ones popularity? Sen. Orji needs not to honour such pedestrian challenge from an idle politician as the outcome of various elections held in Abia State has long solved that riddle. Sen. Orji is much occupied with legislative matters in the National Assembly to engage in such frivolities. We therefore urge Kalu to concentrate on his tribunal case as well as his various litigations which include his infamous case with the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), which he had tried in vain to circumvent since 2007.
Except village idiots, no rational being would take seriously Kalu’s sanctimoniousness, especially when it was on record that he left Abia State with colossal debt of N29 billon as at 2007. The most annoying part of the debt was the fact that substantial part of it accrued from advertisement in his newspaper (The Sun), placed on behalf of his friends, mother and family members who see Abia State as family investment. The fact that after six years of his fallout with Sen. Orji, Kalu has gone ahead to sell part of Sun Newspaper to a former governor simply attest to the truth that his newspaper company thrived under Sen. Orji’s benevolence from 2007 to 2010.
The fact is that Sen. Orji has carved a niche for himself with his resounding leadership qualities and needs not Kalu’s kind of notoriety which saw him stuff Ghana-Must-Go bag with coupon papers trimmed in money shape, decorated with few naira notes on top for donation in Maiduguri. It is worthy to mention also that as the Father of Modern Abia Politics, Sen. Orji cannot under any guise appropriate hectares of land from his kinsmen ostensibly for establishment of a factory; neither will he insert fake National Honour, such as Member of Niger (MON) in his prestigious name.
Kalu’s continuous assertion that Sen. Orji looted Abia State funds while Governor is disgusting and sounds diversionary when one considers the fact that the reason he is being investigated by the EFCC was because of the sum of N5.4 billion traced to his account which he was unable to explain. Apart from this, it is on record that Kalu while serving as the Governor of Abia State purchased Commercial aircrafts under Slok group which was later grounded by former President Obasanjo. He also purchased a private jet as well as set-up the Sun Newspaper with takeoff capital of over N2 billion which does not include the purchase of land and other vital printing equipment. When compared to Sen. Orji who owned no investment or questionable billions of naira traced to his account, Abians should know who the actual looter is.
We urge the public to avoid being deceived with the rhetoric that Kalu was richer than Abia State before his emergence as governor in 1999, because he severally altered the Assert Declaration Form to hide the false declaration he made while being sworn-in as the Executive Governor of Abia State. So where lays the integrity which Kalu always hang on to each time he want to speak about Sen. Orji? It is sad that such character will speak ill of Sen. Orji and people will pay attention to the extent that it was circulated and discussed on social media.
While we wait for Orji Kalu’s elementary response, we challenge him to tell Abians the iniquities Sen. Orji committed against him as well as mention the 120 roads or other conspicuous projects he completed in Abia State in his eight years of misrule. Until that is done, the disparity between Sen. Orji and Kalu remains unfathomable.
Signed
Don Norman Obinna
Media Adviser to Sen. Theodore Orji
