home of another prominent monarch. In the last couple of weeks, he has embarked on
cross-country visitations, preaching good governance, leadership, and Igbo integration.
From Ife where he visited the Ooni, through Owerri where he was guest to the chairman of the
South-East Council of Traditional Rulers, and Okigwe where he called at the home of the leader
of MASSOB, it has been travel galore for the former governor who has been in hibernation for a
while now.
As would be expected, his media men are making a ceremony out of the visitations. Yet, the
cases against Kalu will not be decided on the pages of newspapers but in the court where the
files are lying in wait for him. His track records run before him like an anxious forerunner.
Having kept mum and physically away from the globally celebrated funeral of Chukwuemeka
Odumegwu-Ojukwu, which lasted for over three months, people prompted into a conjecture that
perhaps Kalu must have been sick. It is uncharacteristic of him to keep away from such
moments. He looks for such great moments to shine. But since after being forced into an
untimely political menopause by the liberation forces led by the Ochendo of Abia, the
ex-governor has been living like a recluse, cocooned in solitary confinement. He has been
nursing his wounds with dignified silence.
Today, Kalu might be thinking that it is time to re-launch himself, to step out of his enclave. Like
the ancient mystical phoenix, he has emerged from hibernation to take on a new life. And in this
calculated mission of self re-invention, he has found a good strategy in the cross-country
visitations. But as he travels, there is a dark shadow trailing him. His preachments about
leadership have ended as a self-directed sarcasm, a kind of self-mockery. His clamour for Igbo
integration – or is it Igbo president? – is the same old gamji that climaxed with his speech at the
palace of the monarch of Enugu Ukwu, Anambra State, entitled “I am the Face of the New
Igbo”, but which ended with the monumental “summersault” of 2003 when his second-term bid
was under threat.
The main irony or humour in the current moves by Kalu is that his case is still pending with the
EFCC. He is being prosecuted for crimes bordering on abuse of office and embezzlement of
public funds. In civilised countries where the law is allowed to run its course, such men as Kalu
may perhaps be behind bars, serving long jail terms with hard labour. Among his co-travellers
who are facing trial by the EFCC, he is the only one with the effrontery to embark on this open
grandstanding.
But the questions to ask are: How could somebody who threw Abia State backward for twelve
agonising years have the guts to stand on the podium and talk about leadership? How could
somebody whose eight-year tenure as governor made no positive impact on Abia people have
the peace to mention the word leadership? The truth is that the Nigerian public cannot be
deceived by Kalu’s present tricks. The major blame, however, goes to the EFCC, which has
slumbered on these cases and has, in the circumstance, given room for this insult on our
collective sensibility.
As a reminder, Kalu’s trajectory in the political corridors of Abia State remains the worst tragedy
that ever befell Abia people. It was an ugly throwback to the gains humanity has made through
the ages. And today, his successor, Governor Theodore Orji, has struggled to organise the
house scattered by him. Governor Orji has brought decorum to the state after those locust
years.
During his eight-year reign, Kalu expended three deputy governors, 262 commissioners and
countless number of transitional chairmen. Everything was a game. The ‘wonder roads’ he
brought Obasanjo, Atiku, N’Abba and other personalities to commission in Aba could not last for
one year. He could not bring in one crane to construct a single outstanding public building in
Abia State. He rather introduced a new lexicon to the political dictionary of Nigeria –
‘Mamacracy’: a system where his deputy, speaker of the House of Assembly, traditional rulers,
commissioners, permanent secretaries, and anybody of worth must take instruction from his
mother.
This is just a little of the history that Kalu has in his kitty as he embarks on his cross-country
visitations. He is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the discerning public. He seems to think
that Nigerians are caught by a collective amnesia as to have suddenly forgotten his spiral ring of
controversies. But Abians, and indeed the whole world, are not in a hurry to forget.
EFCC should therefore accelerate the case on Kalu and save us from this grievous insult on our
sensibilities.
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