Abia: Ndigbo Won’t See Kalu In The Ordinary

Facts and figures matter so much in the writing profession. This is sacrosanct to journalists. They do not play with the 3Ws – Who, When and Where. Permit me to say that those who are bent on the job of scandalising Chief Orji Uzor Kalu in Abia State are those who because of stomach infrastructure do not care to verify the 3Ws and apply them. All that is paramount to them is 'how do you say we should blackmail Kalu in the media'?

Many of the aides of the present government in Abia State today are those who do not know where the 'dead is buried'. They just came and started to haul insults on Kalu, a man that by tommorrow you would see them running to him to plead or beg for one help from the other. And being a man who has chosen not to be stonehearted, Kalu would always forgive. All that he would do is to shed his always emotional tears and all the wrongs you did to him are gone.

Kalu has forgiven the mighty and low in and out of the country and is always preaching about peace to reign in Abia State and the world at large. I'm writing this because it is not sugarcoated reading the mammoth insults the aides of the present government in Abia State are heaping on Kalu without the governor cautioning his boys to understand that it was Kalu who made him what he is today.

From being the Chief of Staff to Kalu, he became the governor he is today. It is a toss to Kalu for whatever the present governor has become no matter who is igniting the embers of hatred against Kalu in the state due to stomach infrastructure. But the question should be whether these assemblages of 'bring Kalu and kill' will not be feeding when this government is gone.

Kalu was a man who outsmarted ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo and the ex-Rottweiler of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu and, made sure that the present government in Abia State hold under the leadership of the present governor. Where has Kalu gone wrong when even a kid if given the opportunity would tell the governor of Abia State to fix the bad roads, enhance the terrible living conditions in the state, upgrade the school system, rebuild and build factories and stop giving buses and kekes to the teeming unemployed masses in Abia State.

This is not a mere propaganda. Some of us in Anambra State, the heat of the shoddiest happening in Abia State is telling on us, because Abia State was one state that Ndigbo was proud of because of Aba. If the present government thinks that it is making progress with governance, which I doubt, why bring Kalu into the picture of blackmail always. The research for this article has shown that if there is any man that has been blackmailed and assassinated character-wise, that man is Kalu, for no fault of his.

And what do the perpetrators of this achieve with such acts? To make Kalu's business partners to loathe him or the world to hate him or what? But the people know the truth that Kalu is innocent of all the 'pull him down' being meted out to him. Please, who can tell the world why this government is bent on blackmailing Kalu? No matter what the government in Umuahia does against Kalu with the hope that it is bringing him to the cleaners, the koko thing is that it helps in the continuous uplift of Kalu to the limelight.

The government in Umuahia knows that no matter what it does in making sure that Kalu was brought down, no Igbo person would see Kalu in the ordinary. Ndigbo know Kalu as a great man and a mighty man in battle. During his stay at the Government House, Umuahia, the Emetumba Ahudike(one of Kalu's chieftaincy titles) was one man whom the Muslim fanatics remembered and shrivelled on their incessant killings of Ndigbo in the north. When he visited most parts of the north in any uprising by the Muslims against Ndigbo, the chaos would cease. This is the quintessential Orji Uzor Kalu. How people forget so soon!

It is not the ethics of journalism to use polluted language, if not, it would have behoved on the writer to say that it is a shame to Abia State that because of political gains, they are hounding Kalu who is a man that his name attracts favour from far and near. Go to the White House at Washington DC., USA and mention 'Orji Uzor Kalu' and be surprised how he is revered. He is beyond Abia politics, but as the saying goes, east, west, north and south, there is no place as home.

It is because of this 'home' template that one suspects Kalu is even showing apprehension over the pitiful plight of his home state. It is time all those government agents in Abia State casting aspersions against Kalu knew that posterity will never be merciful to the present governor. The governor, whether his aides and him like it or not, has brought distrust to the governor's family name.

Nobody should think that the governor is denying Kalu the dividends of democracy. Even the street people are saying that they are yet to see any sign of the dividends of democracy that its quest led to the pummelling of many persons by the military juntas in Abia State. Ndigbo will continue to revere Kalu, no matter all the bad-bellies in Abia State against him. Chief Orji Uzor Kalu is one of our great sons, not because of his stupendous wealth, but because he has always stood for Ndigbo when there was none for such.

Sir Ifeje Nwaola is the Coordinator Ndigbo Abiago Ihu (NAI), a socio-cultural group, Ihiala, Anambra.