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11.11.2013 Feature Article

Orji Kalu Has Been Crying

Orji Kalu Has Been Crying
11.11.2013 LISTEN

Ex-governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu is crying. He does not want to hide his tears for our beloved country. His tears signal a pure heart bemoaning Nigeria as a country that is grieving, with deprived hopes of citizens, with losses everywhere, with lost love, in pain, wearing sadness, but trying to re-build strength.

Nonetheless, the comfort which is expected to come to a person crying may be elusive, because the ineffective approach of government is to pretend as if it is not hearing Kalu's loud voice or seeing his tears, which he has always shown on his Saturdays Column in the Sun. The unenthusiastic affairs in the country are giving Kalu headache, much concern that he wonders where selfless services have gone to. He would tell the crop of our current leaders to re-enact the country to be abreast with realities in the areas of justice, equity and fair play.


Kalu's tears are of constant quantity; his heart is in pain of how the country has been evolving from right to left, with monumental series of problems and troubles that do not make a country so blessed as Nigeria, to grow. The sea of Kalu's tears is on how Nigeria could attain transparent development and become the envy of many countries, devoid of ethnic and religious biases; the later have been the bane of the country from 1914 of its amalgamation.

Why many Nigerians are still struggling to make ends meet no matter how hard they try to surmount debauchery is a case that Kalu says has grown out of hand, because of the perilous times Nigerians have come to be suffering and are enduring in the name of democracy. His angst is that Nigerians are suffering dissipation 53years of the country's independence and 100years of the amalgam known as Nigeria today from the coined Northern and Southern protectorates.

It is not clear outside the matrix that the problem with Nigeria is leadership, the reason the problems with Nigeria grow in torrents and from the state of threatening to the threshold of not resolving majority of her woes. Kalu would say that tribes and the numerous languages that characterise the country are far from the problems, but bad and dishonest leadership. To him, the later have been the sledge hammer threatening the fabrics of peace and stability of our cherished country.

But in the face of these multifaceted problems with Nigeria, Kalu is not giving up on hope that the country would get it right. As a hope-builder in the country, especially to the younger ones, he loves telling the story as it is in the country and does not intend to place the country as a bad one. All that he feels would help us are for truth to be re-enacted and taken as a crest that everybody pins on his or her heart.


Kalu is not just saying that the lack of truth amongst the leaders is the problem with Nigeria; many who have come in contact with him can easily tell, that he is one man who doesn't say that he is travelling to Abidjan, when what is on his mind is really Abuja. He sees anybody into this kind of practice as one of those who have held Nigeria down as a country for decades.

Even though that Kalu sees the reformation of the country's policies to doing things as not a tea-party, he is of the belief that whatever positive Nigerians are yearning to happen in Nigeria can only happen, when they embrace team-work and the spirit of sportsmanship. Kalu's tears are that individualism has taken over the once revered spirit of communalism. The later, being where everybody was his or her brother's keeper, and not the brother's kidnapper, as could be experienced today.

This is why the dude is crying, but his tears may be mistaken by many as sign of weakness, which is not true. Kalu's tears are sign of a man with the love and progress of Nigeria and Nigerians at heart. Therefore, it is the duty of all and sundry to support Kalu in re-addressing those things that make him cry for Nigeria.

His tears are that we have to be maximizing the country's potentialities. We have to help Kalu and move from retrogression to progressivism. No man or woman remains a kid at 53years. His admonishment is that Nigerians have to eschew contributing in some compute to the problems of Nigeria.

Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu says that nobody will develop Nigeria, except Nigerians do. He believes that things have to be corrected in order to avoid the recurring distasteful past experiences. It is his belief that the leaders should learn from developed democracies and how they were able to develop their economies to a global acceptance.

These are what have been causing Kalu to cry; hence he is calling on the leaders to diversify the generation of income from crude oil. He regrets if Nigeria has any rational elucidation to tender as to the reason Malaysia, which learned about palm oil from Nigeria, should be far ahead in the production of palm oil than Nigeria.

Editor's Note:

Odimegwu Onwumere, a Poet/Writer, writes from Rivers State.
Tel: +2348057778358
Email: [email protected]
www.odimegwuonwumere.wordpress.com

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