THE IRREDEEMABLE LIAR THAT IS ORJI UZOR KALU

Caution and decorum, attributes that are expected of former Governors were cast to the wind like tempests on page A4 of the Vanguard, Monday March 16^thand page 49, of The Sun on Wednesday 17^th March, 2015. These acts confirmed the fact that Kalu, the accidental former governor of Abia State is an irredeemable liar. In his words on the Vanguard, ‘I did not vote, they caged me into my house with four Armored Personnel Carriers.’

 When asked if this will not happen again, he boasted, ‘it will not, our people will burn down the state. We are ready for them; we are not going to take it from anybody. The governor cannot try it. If he tries, it will be the end of his administration. Because I have left him for too long….’

As against these spurious claims and empty boasts, Kalu voted in booth 006, in Igbere in 2011 and thereafter granted an interview to journalists numbering over five, representing Vanguard, the Nation, Daily Independent and more. To his claims that 4 APCs were mounted in front of his house, how many tanks are there in the military installations in Abia as to position four of them in Igbere?

It is very unfortunate that Kalu has nothing else for Abia youths except lies and lies. Recall Kalu’s lies of having been re-registered as a PDP member where he quoted a dubious card number. This was borne in a release signed by his Media Assistant, Salvator Amadi:  the ex-governor returned to the party on January 16, 2013 and was issued membership card number 9787945 in his ward A in Igbere, Bende Local Government Area.

 Recall too, his claims of a waiver to contest on the platform of the PDP for Senate. In another situation, Kalu feigned knowledge of a conscious Senatorial PPA candidacy and blamed his registration in PPA for senate on an errant aide? Now in the Vanguard, Kalu admitted contesting for Senate in PPA where he intends to bring changes in the Senate.

Could kalu give what he doesn’t have? His infamous legislative experience was very short-lived- an experiment in the military era that would be too much of a risk to allow Kalu such a chance now. While governor in Abia, he was a truant- only arriving when the monthly allocation was available. What does Kalu know about debates, analytical arguments and sequence to make legislative contributions in Abuja? Kalu at best could be a speculator as he neither reads nor allows true dialogues.

We said it to all who could listen that Kalu was only insistent to join the PDP as to cause chaos, a situation where he thrives like the native doctors do in turmoil. When Kalu presented his forged re-entry into PDP in Igbere, Abia stakeholders stormed Abuja for which Kalu pelted them with invectives. That Kalu can’t be tired of lies and deceit is baffling to sane people who keep wondering how a former Gov. cannot kick such embarrassing habits. One of Abia leaders said it that Kalu was a virus who only would infect the party Ochendo has stabilized but many thought it was a joke, now Orji Uzor Kalu has shown his true colours of unbridled mendacity and duplicity.

When Orji Uzor Kalu wrote in his column on the Sun of Saturday March 14^th, he claimed that most of the Ochendo legacy projects were drainpipes. Kalu on air at AIT denied that there were projects. He has constantly written in his blackmail page that he calls Leadership series and insinuated in the past that there are no projects. Now he has admitted that there are projects but refurbished projects. More lies from the spin master.

People have always asked kalu to point at one project he did but none can be seen. In truth, Abia people should know that Kalu is Abia public enemy No1. All he wants are that these goodies of Ochendo administration shouldn’t have been. The funds that converted to Hospitals, Diagnostic centers, International Conference centre, E-Library and others should have ended in his pockets and added to his dirty bank accounts.

The world is watching and many people know the history of these projects. These are available because ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria came physically to lay the foundation stones of many like the BCA, ASUBEB and ASEPA Houses, the International Conference Centre and others. Dr Adesina, Hon Minister for Agric, and former Ministers Labaran Maku and Dr Onyebuchi Chukwu were in Abia to lay the foundation stones of ASUBEB, JAAC, BCA and ASEPA Houses built by the Governor from the scratch. Or is it the new markets which Kalu through his agents dissuaded the traders from occupying. What does Kalu need to gain from all these cocktail of lies?

Kalu spent 8 years of waste and plunder in Abia and not even any meaningful project to show for it. That Ochendo is building and contracting is worth celebrating but, Kalu doesn’t want the world to know the difference therefore his quantum lies to cover up and diminish.

The tragedy of Kalu’s doings is that he has no integrity. Whether he tells 1000 lies does not mean anything to him. Like the fairies in Macbeth, fair is foul and foul is fair. Lies and truth don’t make any difference if you employ the OUK dictum.

His threats to burn down Abia in 2015 elections give credence to the accusations that he is the mastermind of many crimes in Abia. Except the government of Abia ignores him, he is as good as a treasonable felon. Let the truth be told that Orji Uzor Kalu is at the end of his political games. None can trust him even the people he is holding nocturnal meetings with. As a self-acclaimed master strategist, he now targets estranged PDP politicians and promises to help them but they too know that Kalu is politically down and just as he could not make the senate in 2011, now rejected by Abia PDP, his next ploy is to forge a PPA/APC/ APGA alliance as to regain his indirect rule through an APGA gubernatorial. A note of warning to any who will be careless to take him seriously: remember his Nzuko Ndi Igbo project, Igbo Presidency and many others that have all turned out to be big time hoaxes.

 

Hilda Ifeoma Ifegwu writes from Umuahia, Abia State.

Otti’s Issue-baseless Campaign

By Madubuko Hart

When the former Group Managing Director/CEO of Diamond Bank Plc, Dr. Alex Otti resigned his position to contest for the 2015 governorship of Abia State, many of us thought that an intellectual had come to the contest. But when he started his venoms against the government of Governor Theodore Orji by calling it names, we know that he had nothing to offer.

Otti who was originally from Arochukwu with his state-of-the art building built there ran away from his aboriginal village to claim Ngwa person when he heard that the governorship in the 2015 elections was zoned to the Ukwa/Ngwa area. Nonetheless, Otti was at the same time speaking from the sides of his mouth that the zoning formula had been killed. That was when he wanted to contest from his Arochukwu village. But when he saw that the governor was head bent on that Ukwa/Ngwa must produce the next governor, he shifted gear.

Otti’s initial stand was his warning to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the idea of zoning, and he said: “I learnt that you people said you have zoned the governorship to Abia South. No, it is wrong because the national leadership of the PDP had already killed the zoning arrangement in 2011. Remember, that at that time the office of the president was zoned to the North, yet the South is occupying that position today. So, the contest must be thrown open.”

Those clamouring for Otti to succeed the present governor are just doing so based on sentiment. A severe examination of the man called Otti attests that he has dubious gesticulations for power than people know. This is a man who contested the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) primary in a hotel along Aba Road, Umuahia and used faked document to announce himself winner after he was deliberately blindfolded by the so-called Victor Umeh-led national leadership of APGA to the tone of $3m.

While Otti was seeing himself as the winner of the primary election of the party, the true winner emerged in APGA in the person of Ochiagha Reagan Ufomba, who is the only credible candidate in the Abia APGA to contest the governorship election in 2015 with other political parties’ candidates.

With what Otti is causing in the state has shown the man as an unintelligent person, no matter the three doctorate degrees his garrulous campaign team has been hyping that he has. His campaign is issue-baseless and one will not restrain to qualify him as an agent sent by his paymasters to make sure that he deconstructs the government of Governor Orji, which he knows that it will be difficult for him to achieve.

In that highlight, one observer had this to say: The various political parties should come out clean with their various programmes on how to build on that foundation and make the state one of the best. But instead of seeing such discourse, the factional APGA governorship candidate, Alex Otti and his camp… have continued to insult the sensibilities of Abians by making frivolous claims and propaganda that do not hold water or contribute to the uplifting of the political debate. For instance, how can anybody in his rightful senses claim that Governor Orji, who has provided a number of legacy structures that are visible everywhere, has not done anything?

It is pertinent to write that Otti is dead on arrival and his political coffin would be nailed in the 2015 general elections. He knows that he is not heading to anywhere; hence he resorts to throwing stones by saying that the PDP candidate in the state, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu was being sponsored by the state government. What Otti did not realize, according to a critic, is that Dr. Ikpeazu, as a bona fide citizen of Abia State, is free to contest any election of his choice, provided he is qualified to run in that election.

However, in the light of that, the Government of Abia State through the sociable Chief Press Secretary to Abia State Governor, Mr. Charles Ajunwa, had described the likes of Umeh and Otti as pathological liars and agents of destruction masquerading as politicians. The question that the governor had asked through Ajunwa is: “Where were Umeh and Otti when His Excellency Governor Theodore Orji through his inspiring doggedness restored sanity and peace in Aba in particular and Abia in general by ending kidnapping which completely brought all activities in the state to a standstill? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor Theodore Orji started and completed the hitherto impassable Aba/Owerri Road?”

The puzzle continued: “Where were Umeh and Otti when His Excellency started the de-silting of drains in Aba? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor T.A. Orji constructed the Uruakpa Road in Aba South? Where were they when Governor Orji started and completed the reconstruction of Ukwu Mango section of Faulks Road Aba (1.2km)? Where were Umeh and Otti when Governor Orji started and completed the access road to Geometric Power Plant Aba? Where were they when Governor Orji restored the manhood of Abians? (To borrow the insightful words of Chief Ojo Maduekwe) Just to mention but a few.”

Ajunwa had seen that Otti and his co-travellers were economic with the truth about the government of his boss, because they were jealous of Governor Orji’s laudable and verifiable achievements, which put him ahead of other past leaders of the state. Ajunwa was of the opinion that Governor Orji’s remarkable achievements have won him uncountable awards and laurels from all parts of the world.

He described his boss as one leader who does not believe in propaganda as a tool for governance, rather he believes in hard work and selfless service to humanity. Therefore, it’s evident that Otti who aligns with Umeh to smear Governor Orji cannot be trusted, because as Nigerians knew, Umeh is a man that cannot be trusted, because he is gullible with power.

Umeh’s tenure as APGA’s chairman had expired since 5 years ago, yet Umeh clinched unto the leadership of the party for selfish reasons. This is a man that Otti has embraced. Like father, they say, like son. It then means that Otti can never be trusted.
 
Hart writes from Lagos