Abia Imbroglio: Blame T.A Orji – Right of Reply

Ochendo

By: Don Norman Obinna

Our attention has been drawn to a malevolent article – Abia
Imbroglio: Blame T.A Orji - published in Sun Newspaper of
Saturday, July 9, 2016 in Orji Kalu insipid Leadership Series
wherein as usual he tried fruitlessly to give artificial respiration to
his already faded political image with his baseless and
uncorroborated allegations of non performance and perfidy
against the immediate past governor of Abia State and Senator
representing Abia Central Senatorial District, Senator Theodore
Ahamefule Orji.
Though clandestine, we need not to be psychical to understand
that Kalu’s recent ludicrous article was driven by fear of inevitable
political oblivion staring at his face; hence the need to ingeniously
inveigle himself into the affections of Abians who had been
punishing him retributively with their votes in every election year.
Being aware of his predicament therefore, our response is not to
dignify him but to re-state the facts unadulterated for the public
to see the repulsiveness in the character called Orji Uzor Kalu.
In his self-defeating article where he accused Sen. Orji of
committing some disgraceful acts which as usual he failed to
mentioned, Kalu wrote: “Unknown to many of us, Chief Orji had a
hidden agenda which he pursued with ferocious deter¬mination
but pretentious mien. He pretended he was a team player, while
deep inside he harboured some dangerous and wicked
in¬tentions. One beautiful thing about my relationship with this
man is that I have always treated him fairly and tried, at each
moment, not to bring his iniquities to the public domain.”
From antecedents, this claim is preposterous for garrulous Kalu
who is very susceptible to keeping secretes. What is pernicious in
telling the world what exactly Sen. Orji did to him if not that such
disclosure will expose his unconventional behavior and infamy to
the world? Of course it will be indistinguishable as self-
immolation for Kalu to tell the world that the iniquities of his
successor, Sen. Orji were his refusal to continue the gratification
of his long list of personal and family wants totaling a whopping
sum of N116 million monthly, designed to cater for his charted
flights, his mother and siblings up keeps as well as the
maintenance of his residential buildings at Igbere, Lagos and
Abuja respectively.
Of course facts are sacrosanct as events have shown that six
years after his fallout with Sen. Orji, Kalu has converted most of
his buildings to hotels, while plans are on the horizon to convert
his Igbere luxury home to resort for tourists. Surprised! Certainly,
when one considers the fact that he never built one tourist centre
in Abia State in his eight years of misrule. Unless in his usual
stage management approach he has planned to cajole the
tourists to come watch (Okonko), an annual Igbere masquerade
festival.
For a man who apart from taken the entire Sen. Orji’s initial
security vote, also conspired with Zerock Engineering company
(which he introduced and insisted should handle all road projects
in Abia State), to divert the sum of N2 billion awarded for the
construction of Ossa access road to Umuahia and another N500
million for the rehabilitation of Port Harcourt road Aba under false
pretext, to claim thus: “Chief Orji deliberately refused to develop
Aba so that the city would deteriorate to such a level that the
people would be turned against me……..” shows the charlatanism
in the character called Orji Kalu.
One had expected Orji Kalu to turn a new leaf after attaining the
respectable age of 55, but a recent fraud case where he and his
Slok group, connived and defrauded Diamond Bank and Asaa
Energy and Engineering Services LTD the sum of N200 million
diverted to a sister company’s account from the N1billion loan
granted by Diamond bank for the construction of Tank Farm at
ikot-Abasi Akwa-Ibom State has shown that the same young man
who nine years ago duped Sen. Orji and former Anambra State
Governor colossal amount of money budgeted for tribunal and
almost succeeded in duping former Enugu State Governor for the
same purpose has shown that he has not changed. For the
avoidance of doubt, we will not hesitate to make the documents
available for public consumption in subsequent reply if Kalu does
not desist from using Sen. Orji’s name for political relevance.
We cannot help but laughed when Kalu, in his ill-fated column
asserted thus: “In fact, it took us just three months to clear the
backlog of salaries and build the first set of four roads that
transformed Enyimba City…….. Aba for instance, received due
attention. Without sounding immodest, our government built over
120 roads in the city, which propelled de¬velopment and set it on
the path of economic buoyancy.”
Balderdash! If nothing else, this bogus assertion has made
caricature of Kalu’s acclaimed wittiness. How plausible is this
claim when all the roads in Aba- Enyimba city- put together are a
little bit above 300 kilometers? What are the names and locations
of these roads? Mtcheww! It is very contemptible that Kalu still
plays this same anachronistic political game which he fooled
Abians with for eight years in this contemporary era replete with
scientific research and generalization. No wonder he lost woefully
in all the elections he had contested with every Tom, Dick and
Harry.
Kalu further claimed in his wishy-washy article to be very popular
and even challenged Sen. Orji for a walk round the city of Aba.
Can you imagine such a childish way of testing ones popularity?
Sen. Orji needs not to honour such pedestrian challenge from an
idle politician as the outcome of various elections held in Abia
State has long solved that riddle. Sen. Orji is much occupied with
legislative matters in the National Assembly to engage in such
frivolities. We therefore urge Kalu to concentrate on his tribunal
case as well as his various litigations which include his infamous
case with the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC),
which he had tried in vain to circumvent since 2007.
Except village idiots, no rational being would take seriously Kalu’s
sanctimoniousness, especially when it was on record that he left
Abia State with colossal debt of N29 billon as at 2007. The most
annoying part of the debt was the fact that substantial part of it
accrued from advertisement in his newspaper (The Sun), placed
on behalf of his friends, mother and family members who see
Abia State as family investment. The fact that after six years of
his fallout with Sen. Orji, Kalu has gone ahead to sell part of Sun
Newspaper to a former governor simply attest to the truth that his
newspaper company thrived under Sen. Orji’s benevolence from
2007 to 2010.
The fact is that Sen. Orji has carved a niche for himself with his
resounding leadership qualities and needs not Kalu’s kind of
notoriety which saw him stuff Ghana-Must-Go bag with coupon
papers trimmed in money shape, decorated with few naira notes
on top for donation in Maiduguri. It is worthy to mention also that
as the Father of Modern Abia Politics, Sen. Orji cannot under any
guise appropriate hectares of land from his kinsmen ostensibly for
establishment of a factory; neither will he insert fake National
Honour, such as Member of Niger (MON) in his prestigious name.
Kalu’s continuous assertion that Sen. Orji looted Abia State funds
while Governor is disgusting and sounds diversionary when one
considers the fact that the reason he is being investigated by the
EFCC was because of the sum of N5.4 billion traced to his
account which he was unable to explain. Apart from this, it is on
record that Kalu while serving as the Governor of Abia State
purchased Commercial aircrafts under Slok group which was later
grounded by former President Obasanjo. He also purchased a
private jet as well as set-up the Sun Newspaper with takeoff
capital of over N2 billion which does not include the purchase of
land and other vital printing equipment. When compared to Sen.
Orji who owned no investment or questionable billions of naira
traced to his account, Abians should know who the actual looter
is.
We urge the public to avoid being deceived with the rhetoric that
Kalu was richer than Abia State before his emergence as governor
in 1999, because he severally altered the Assert Declaration Form
to hide the false declaration he made while being sworn-in as the
Executive Governor of Abia State. So where lays the integrity
which Kalu always hang on to each time he want to speak about
Sen. Orji? It is sad that such character will speak ill of Sen. Orji
and people will pay attention to the extent that it was circulated
and discussed on social media.
While we wait for Orji Kalu’s elementary response, we challenge
him to tell Abians the iniquities Sen. Orji committed against him
as well as mention the 120 roads or other conspicuous projects
he completed in Abia State in his eight years of misrule. Until that
is done, the disparity between Sen. Orji and Kalu remains
unfathomable.


Don Norman Obinna Is The Media Adviser To Senator T A Orji (Ochendo)