RE: What happened to the ₦1 trillion Abia earned during your tenure (1999-2007)? My second advise or infact warning, is that you should henceforth desist from harassing Gov T.A Orji. Just think about it, are you the only Governor who disagreed with his successor in office? Why all the fuzz? Have you ever heard Dr Peter Odili, Chief Attah, Mr Donald Duke, Alhaji Bafawara, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, Alhaji Adamu Muazu etc, say anything against their successors? There is something fundamentally childish and unbecoming about this whole episode. Can't you simply get on with your life, really? But if you choose to persist on this course, and keep abusing Governor T.A Orji, we are firmly resolved to answer you in kind. Our people have decided that this nonsense has gone on for too long. It has to come to an end now!
Let me say upfront that I had intended to make these exchanges with
you, civil and educated. Apparently, you are not so minded. Your
diatribe against me last Wednesday, in your Sex, Crime and Gossip
tabloid, was a sickening reflection of the perverse quality of your mind
and its chronic inability to rise to the rigorous demands of cerebral
discourse.
I was not disappointed, knowing you, artful dodger! Your intention
was to distract me from the core issue of your dismal performance as
governor of our dear state and even more importantly, your prodigious
squandering of the over N1 trillion Abia state earned in that period.
Sorry sir, i will not fall for that cheap trick! It is the oldest trick
in the business, hurling abuses in order to divert attention. Let us
face the issues which i believe Abians and millions of other Nigerians
are really interested in. What did you achieve as Governor in 8 years
and what did you do with the N1 trillion Abia earned, internally (1GR),
and externally, from the federation account? This is the question
history will forever pose to you.
You were elected Governor in 1999 and entrusted with the responsibility
of leading Abia State and adding value to her. It was an esteemed
mandate. Abia had suffered immensely in the hands of various soldiers of
fortune who governed her under the military. Umuahia, the state
capital, was the epic centre of the Nigerian civil war, having served as
the capital of the defunct Biafra. As a young man, many had expected
you to see your election as a historic opportunity for a new generation
of leaders to seize the moment and put Abia on the path of sustained
socio-economic development. But eight years after the fact, what was
your record? You claimed in your initial onslaught against Governor T.A
Orji, that he is now converting the projects you established as his own.
What projects? You assumed office in 1999 and inherited a dilapidated
and ramshackle Governors lodge and residence. These facilities had been
requisitioned by the first military Administration when the state was
created in 1999. You spent eight years living and working in the same
make shift buildings. You didn’t build a governor’s lodge.
You didn’t build a governor’s office. You didn’t build a state
secretariat, (even Governor Achike Udenwa of Imo State whom you often
made fun of at your dinner table built a state secretariat.) You didn’t
build an office for the judiciary. The house of assembly is still
occupying a temporary office. The commissioners quarters your
predecessor started was not completed. Unknown to millions of Nigerians,
Abia state is therefore the only state of its age where the seat of
Government is still located in temporary buildings, 23 years after. For
eight years, the broadcasting corporation of Abia state functioned in
temporary apartments. Indeed, everything under you was temporary. You
didn’t build even a single dualized road in 8 years. You didn’t build
one hospital or even a maternity, or a market, except the Igbere evening
market. You ignored Aba, Abia’s commercial nerve centre and allowed
that great town to lose traction and become wasted. You left Umuahia
worse than you met it, allowing the golden Guinnea Brewery to collapse.
Sir, what did you really achieve in Abia State? What did you give to
Abiriba, your next door neighbour and Arochukwu, the community you
claimed to have adopted? I once asked Chief Emma Nwokoro why you treated
Arochukwu so cruelly.
You ignored the collpased intra city roads and didn’t pay attention
to the perennial water shortage. Yet, at every opportunity, you would go
to Arochukwu visiting with many of their illustrious sons. What of
Ukwa-Ngwa, what is your record there? The strategic road which passes
from Umuahia through the heart of Ngwa land, Ururuka road, and which you
announced on television that you would reconstruct, was abandoned. You
didn’t build a stadium. You didn’t build even one secondary school. You
didn’t set up a University. It was Gen Ike Nwachukwu who set up the Abia
State University. Governor Evan Enwerem set up the Imo State
University. Governor Sam Egwu set up Ebonyi state University.
So your Excellency, what did you achieve in Abia that T.A Orji is now
claiming? Please tell me? Practically, anything of note in Abia State
today which Okpara and Mbakwe did not build, was built by Gov. T.A.
Orji… New governor’s lodge, new secretariat, new governor’s office, new
conference centre, new judiciary complex, new general market and new
office complex, etc.
THE TRIAL OF ORJI UZOR KALU.
You were elected Governor and subsequently re-elected. The governorship
is a full time job. But that was not the way you saw it. For you, it was
a part time job, a platform to expand your fledging business empire,
SLOK, using the time and resources of Abia State. So while the fortunes
of Abia state were dwindling under you, the fortunes of your SLOK
business empire was expanding exponentially. While in office, you set up
an airline, SLOK AIRLINE. You set up a bank, First International Bank,
Gambia. When you attended board meetings of the bank in the Gambia, Abia
state government usually paid your bills and the ecstacode of the
officials in your entourage.
You set up a shipping line. You set up an insurance company, while a
plethora of companies fronted for you in the construction business. You
increased your equity in the defunct Hallmark Bank Plc. You set up a
newspaper, The Sun and also applied for a license to set up a bank in
Nigeria. Meanwhile, the State owned Newspaper, the Ambassador, was
deliberately allowed to vegetate. You didn’t build any housing estate.
Meanwhile the only one which the military government had established,
the Ehimiri Housing Estate, you acquired over 24 units for your personal
use.
ICING ON THE CAKE: In 2007, you took us on a tour of your palatial
castle in Igbere. You were in an expansive mood that day and so failed
to note that the look on my face was actually a grimace.
I was put off by the grotesque display of opulence and was greatly
troubled by the sublime irony of it all. For 8 years, you built
virtually nothing in Abia state, not even an office to work from or a
residence to live in: And yet you built a palatial mansion, fit for a
Saudi King, in your village, just 20 kilometres from Government House!
You showed us the guest chalet, 72 rooms, the large lecture hall, larger
in your own words than the main hall of the Nigerian Institute of
International Affairs (NIIA), the tennis courts, the various swimming
pools, the 22-hole golf course, the land you mapped out for the proposed
aerodrome (to land small gulf stream jets) the orchard, e.t.c, One
question that kept ringing in my mind that day was not where you got the
money from (the answer was quiet obvious) rather it was, “so you know
how to build befitting structures and you didn’t build even a lodge for
the governor of Abia State?” Your Excellency, I am still curious: why?
Was it an act of wickedness or plain selfishness? Did you nurse a
psychological hatred for Abia and her people? What did our people do
wrong by you? How could you, a young man – given such a wonderful
opportunity – so crassly abuse it? How could you have treated Abia as
war booty? All the contracts in the Ministry of Information, at least
during my tenure, were executed by the company belonging to your
brother, Prince Nnanna Kalu. For 8 years, the Ministry of Environment
was absolutely under your mother. She nominated all the commissioners
and managed all the contracts. Choice real estate in Umuahia and Aba,
were allocated to your family or interests representing them. And yet,
when Governor T.A took over, you wanted that regime to continue. You
asked him to cede the Abia State Government-owned General Hospital in
Umunanto, the only one in the zone, to you to serve as the teaching
hospital of your proposed SLOK University of Technology. Haba Oga, can
it ever be enough? T.A’s refusal, (documented) is part of your
bitterness towards him. What you may not know is that it was Abia Elders
who advised him not to cede that hospital to you. They argued that you
made enough money to build a hospital if you needed one.
That is also my considered view. No government in Abia State, now or
in the future, should so indulge you again. You have made enough from
the system. Something should be left for the people of Abia State. Abia
is not a vassal of the Kalu family!
MATTERS ARISING FROM YOUR RESPONSE IN SUN NEWSPAPER
Oga, i sincerely do not relish the prospects of rummaging in the sewer
with you. I believe that adults can, and in fact should conduct debates,
no matter how contentious the topic, with civility. Nevertheless, I am
constrained to respond in kind to you not really because I wish to
descend to your gutter, but mainly to make a crucial point to you. Your
Excellency, you do not possess a monopoly of rascality, loud mouth or
foul language. Well, don’t blame me, you asked for this, now here goes,
sir.
You accused me of disagreeing with my father, and yet buried him in
style. Well, I did o! So what’s the big deal with a son disagreeing with
his father on occasion? Which young man does not? But what of you; did
you have a father? When did he die, and how was he buried? I am
referring to the father of a governor, the self-acclaimed richest man in
Abia State? You once said that your father never visited you at the
Government House throughout your 8 years as governor. Please why was
that so, if i may ask? Could it be because he was bitter with you? And
why? Does it have anything to do with the occultic and incestuous
desecration of sacred maternal values in his family? Which father would
be happy to so share his wife? Indeed, your Excellency, you should be
the last person to talk about morality and family values. The truth is
that you have none. You are morally bankrupt, through and through. The
funny thing is that it is common knowledge. You made your choice a long
time ago to pursue the god of money. And I must say, you have succeeded.
But the price is that you are bereft of honour and integrity. You
should not complain, after all, you got what you always wanted – wealth.
You believe that with money you can purchase anything. Your latest
project is to become a Papal knight. Well, you are allegedly a Catholic
and know the rules. So which wife will you present? Ifeoma, Ifeyinwa,
Gladys or Waziri?
You accused me of not having a home in Abuja or Lagos and that I beg for
adverts for my newspaper. You are correct sir. I am a tenant in Lagos
and I don’t live in Abuja so I don’t need a house there. But look at it
this way, your Excellency; you have houses in Lagos, Aba, Umuahia,
Igbere, Abuja, Dubai, Charlotte (USA), Maryland, (USA) London and South
Africa; all of them residential! And yet every night you sleep only in
one room and in one house. Don’t you think the joke really is on you? If
I may ask, what really are you seeking with this primitive accumulation
of wealth? The wise man wrote in the book of Proverbs: “don’t envy the
wicked man his riches, in a twinkle of an eye they would develop wings
and fly away!” As the Igbo also say, “A beggar is better than a thief”
And I would add, he is also better than a serial looter, an abuser of
public office and an aggrandiser!
A judicial panel of inquiry recently concluded an inquiry into the
disappearance of the Goss Printing Machine purchased by your
predecessor, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu for The Ambassador newspaper. It is
alleged that a former top Govt. official spirited it out of government
warehouse in Ahiake to Lagos, where it is being used to print a certain
tabloid.
I remember that the panel summoned you, but you declined to appear. But
sir, between you and I, tell me, do you know anything about the missing
printing press? I also understand that it is part of the charges the
EFCC arraigned you for.
The problem you have is that you don’t make a distinction between the
public and private. As governor, you abdicated the duties for which Abia
people hired you, and instead leveraged on the position to build your
personal financial empire. You forgot I was still commissioner when you
set up The Sun Newspaper in 2001 and saw how you shamelessly and
recklessly used your office to market the newspaper.
You forced all state Government owned ministries, parasatals,
institutions, local governments, e.t.c to place regular advertisements
in it. You harassed government agents, contractors, counter parties,
banks and other institutions, to patronize it. In 2003 after your
re-election, my friend Mr Vin Mgbemena, former MD of Orange Drugs Ltd,
placed congratulatory adverts in This Day and Champion newspapers, for
you. You were angry and queried him why he didn’t place the adverts in
The Sun. After his meeting with you, he told me that you are an amazing
character. “He didn’t even thank me for the adverts, he was peeved that
it was not in The Sun”. To imagine that you once aspired to contest for
the Presidency. Just imagine you as President of Nigeria! Hmm, you would
convert NNPC into a subsidiary of SLOK Group! And they say you want to
be senator! Ha, ha, ha!!! Please, on what record of achievement, if I
may ask? The amazing thing is that despite your fabulous wealth, you are
so pathetically cheap and beggarly. Do you know the common joke about
you among the Lagos in-crowd? That you are the only governor who rather
than add to your friends pockets, would rather take even the last kobo
from them. The late Tayo Aderinokun told me that he and the bank used to
buy air tickets for some of your foreign junkets.
Your former friend, Prince Sunny Aku is relieved that he no longer
has to pick your bills when you are in Lagos and pay for the cost of
your private jet rentals. Chief Chikwe Udensi still rues how much he
spent on you. Remember in 2001 when we were in London and Governor Ibori
gave you eight hundred pounds for Chuka Odom, former Hon. Minister of
State, FCT? You took three hundred pounds from the money claiming,
“after all, if I didn’t give you the job, James would not have given you
the money, Chuka Obu asi? ( Chuka, is it a lie?)” Of course Chuka
agreed with you. Please sir, how many governors can descend so low? But
of course that’s you. No amount is too small, just as no amount is big
enough. Should I talk of your former staffer you had recommended for
appointment. When as a mark of respect he brought the C of O of the four
plots of land he was allocated in Abuja? Remember what you said to him,
“I will take one, give one to Odiuko (your mother) and one to Nnanna
(your brother)!” You collected three and left him with only one. That’s
how you accumulated your buildings in Abuja and all over the world.
However, let me ask you sir; truly how much is enough? Will it ever be
enough? What is responsible for this craze for material acquisition, a
craze that recognizes no moral inhibitions? I fear o!
There should be a limit to everything. But you recognise no limits. No
role is too low or degrading for you. As you told Chijioke Nwakodo and
some others long ago in Umuahia, “the difference between you and the
typical person is that there is no limit to how far you can go to get
whatever you want!” You see sir, it is this amoral disposition that has
always worried reasonable people about you. Even in those days when we
tried to repackage you, that was the feedback we always got from the
public. “He cannot be trusted!” You would agree, they have a point. They
recall the early years of the Babangida administration when a certain
“upsart” presented a letter allegedly signed by Gen Sani Abacha to
Governor Amadi Ikwechegh on the strength of which he was appointed the
chairman of the Cooperative and Commerce Bank (CCB). Subsequently, it
emerged that the letter was a forgery. DHQ tongue-lashed Ikwechegh who
promptly nullified the appointment thereby making you the shortest
serving Chairman of a bank in the world. Sir, some people still
remember. They also remember a certain youngster who was surreptitiously
admitted into Government College Umuahia in the 70′s as the alleged son
of the famous Nnanna Kalu. The story of the pugnacious Maiduguri-based
businessman who cut pieces of paper and mixed them up with naira notes
and announced a huge donation at the Borno State Public Appeal Fund
Lunch, has became legendary.
I understand that your Excellency is angry with Abia State University
for withdrawing your B.Sc (Hons) Political Science certificate. Pray
tell me, what would a reasonable institution do regarding that odious
episode? Is it right that a Visitor to a University would enrol in the
final year class of the same University, more than a decade after
dropping out from another university, write exams and expect to be
examined objectively by the same lecturers who depend on him for their
salaries and career advancement? Haba, oga, don’t you have ‘stop’ in
your dictionary? For your information, there have been intense
speculations in Abia over who actually wrote that exam, including the
final year project. I have my suspicions. Could it be that same “very
close aide?”
If the truth is to be told sir, you live in a glass house, as someone
who phoned me last week said. You know it, so why are you embarking on
such a risky venture of throwing stones? But I know why.
You are doing what we Lagosians call “ogboju”. You assume that you
can shout people down. Or maybe because you have set up a sprawling
newspaper empire, no one can dare you. However, you are wrong. If you
like, you can set up a dozen more newspapers, and employ a legion of
journalists to launder your image. But as William Shakespeare prophesied
long ago, “not even all the waters of Arabia can wash away this stain!!
Sir, you are besmirched for life.
It is wrong and unconscionable for you to set up newspapers to launder
your image, turning a national newspaper into a personal album and
turning otherwise respectable professionals into attack dogs. No
Publisher has done that in the history of the media in Nigeria. A friend
of man keeps count of how many times your picture makes the front cover
of THE SUN and the ailing NEW TELEGRAPH. No other publisher so abuses
his newspaper. Indeed, you have no sense of propriety. How can you
devote two newspapers to attack your successor in office regularly?
In normal circumstances, no editor would accept what you are doing,
especially this idea of a column being ghosted in your name weekly. What
is that! You have corrupted the profession. Now you want to be
President of NPAN? Ha, as what? Anyway, be rest assured that some of us
will review our membership as soon as you succeed in buying yourself
into that esteemed position. I don’t believe you possess the nobility of
character to lead such an August body. Oga, with due respect, allow me
to advise you as your former strategist. Calm down a little and be a bit
more circumspect. You can’t continue hustling in the same manner you
were doing in Maidugiri over twenty five years ago. You are all over the
place, running around. Usually, as people age, they tend to slow down
and become more measured and even dignified. This business of hawking
proposals all over town at your age and level, harassing governors and
all, is demeaning. In government house circles in Uyo, you have become
the butt of jokes over your repeated attempts to talk Governor Godswill
Akpabio into investing in your New Telegraph. He does not want to. Can’t
you get the message? He believes that what he has done for your Sun
newspaper group so far is more than enough. It is also quite interesting
that you are struggling with New Telegraph.
Three Managing Directors in less than six months, and still counting.
I heard you also had to slash salaries a few months ago. Now that you
are no longer governor to leverage on your office, may be you can
appreciate how difficult it is to publish a daily newspaper. And these
are early days yet. After squandering the N500m “loan” you obtained from
the coffers of SUN NEWSPAPERS account with Fidelity Bank, part of the
quarterly N250m Government PR largesse paid from that our brother’s
office in Abuja, now you will be forced to bring out your own money.
That would be crunch time, since you don’t like spending your own money;
indeed, you are an OPM (other peoples money) expert!
My second advice or in fact warning, is that you should henceforth
desist from harassing Gov T.A Orji. Just think about it, are you the
only Governor who disagreed with his successor in office? Why all the
fuzz? Have you ever heard Dr Peter Odili, Chief Attah, Mr Donald Duke,
Alhaji Bafawara, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, Alhaji Adamu Muazu, etc, say
anything against their successors? There is something fundamentally
childish and unbecoming about this whole episode. Can’t you simply get
on with your life, really? But if you choose to persist on this course,
and keep abusing Governor T.A Orji, we are firmly resolved to answer you
in kind.
Our people have decided that this nonsense has gone on for too long. It has to come to an end now!
Finally, my dearest oga, pay attention to the wisdom of the ancients: No
king reigns for ever. You know why? Otherwise he would become God and
no man can be God. Nothing lasts for ever. No one holds all the aces. No
one knows everything, not even Albert Einstein, voted as the most
intelligent man of the millennium. The path of wisdom is to know when to
stop.
Ask any law enforcement officer, the reason most criminals are
eventually caught is that they don’t know when to stop. You would
remember the old saying “every day is for the thief, but one day is for
the house owner.” Whereas you can fool some of the people some of the
time, you certainly can’t fool all the people all the time. Biko, if you
ask me, i will say you have tried. But in all honesty, it is time to
stop, even if it is only to review. Your first son (the one outside
wedlock) will soon marry and you will become a grand pa. All these gra
gra, what is it in aid of?
As the late British writer, Enoch Powel once opined, “every political
career eventually ends in failure.” It is especially so for those who
don’t know when to stop. Artful dodgers do get caught.
As the Igbo say, it is the small shit that spoils that “place.” It is
true that old soldiers never die, but then they also fade away! In the
theatre, when an actor overstays on the stage, the audience eventually
boos him off.
In the old Oyo empire, when an Alaafin desecrates the land as you have
done, the Oyomesi will present him with the calabash of death. His
tragedy is his own making. Obviously, times have changed. But when a
recalcitrant and cantankerous has-been refuses to heed the sunset, he
becomes cannon fodder for children at the moonlight play.
Your Excellency, I regret to say this, you have left us with little choice. It is not only sad, it is really tragic
