WITH the epochal entry of former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, into the All Progressives Congress (APC), it is certainly a death knell for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State.
A foreclosure for the benefit of Kalu’s hypercritics: he lost elections in the state between 2007 and 2015 irrefutably because his amnesic and ungrateful successor, Theodore Ahamefule Orji, optimally thwarted the electoral processes in bovine connivance with the Goodluck Jonathan presidency! This, of course, is no longer possible.
In a demonstrable abuse of democracy, the PDP made the process so simple and simplistic for former governors who did not accomplish anything for eight years to unrestrainedly become members of the upper legislative chamber on a platter! It is only in Nigeria that this kind of absurdity can happen. Ex-governors who should be publicly interrogated for their abysmal tenure and most likely dispatched to maximum prison yards for eternal confinement are patted on the back with senatorial recompense!
If the PDP took this decision with a caveat that only governors who attained a 60 percentage performance threshold will get automatic nomination and representation at subsequent polls, there would be no reservations. But to now endorse executive governors’ leadership mediocrity and dismal governance through the instrumentality of consensual deals was grossly irresponsible, to say the least. The implication of this kind of duplicitous arrangement was that serving or incoming governors on the platform of the PDP had the liberty and leeway to carry on unaccountably and nonchalantly towards the people’s feelings.
This was an official institutionalization of a novel paradigm of insensitivity and a culture of impunity, despotism and haughtiness of incomparability! I cannot fathom how the party arrived at this crossroads. Was it out of desperation to foreclose any possibility of electoral upset for ex-President Jonathan?
I also do not comprehend the premium the PDP of yore placed on its governors as to depend on them for victory in their respective states. Except for a few distinguished governors who could sway their followers and the grassroots population, most governors are liabilities unto themselves and their party! Except if the PDP is creatively saying that these governors have a manipulative way of guaranteeing (euphemism for rigging, other ingenious forms of electoral fraud and unmitigated violence on all oppositional forces amid a surfeit of propagandist dubiousness), there is no justificatory basis for this blatant unilateralism on issues affecting our collectivity.
This is why there is erosion of confidence in state electoral commissions which are seen as appendages of respective governors. In fact, SIECs are not better than local governments in terms of their relationship with some governors who may decide to be bullies and official (constitutionally-approved bandits!). Most governors are the custodians of local government allocations and give out a fraction to hapless and fretful chairmen who cannot raise eyebrows for obvious reasons.
From the foregoing synopsis of the undemocratic credentials of the PDP, which is responsible for the non-deepening of our democracy and vaulting rascality of some governors, we come to my state, Abia, where the PDP zoning formula has been upturned and yet everyone is keeping mum. Long before the current dispensation in the state, it had been agreed by all stakeholders and the PDP leadership over the years that 2015 should be the turn of patient Ukwa-Ngwa axis (Abia South) to produce the governor of the state. In the build-up to the 3015 elections, all sorts of characters—including visible mediocrists—came up as aspirants for this “reserved” position for people of my community and our immediate neighbours, the Ngwa extraction. The exclusiveness of this right is borne out of the fact that since the creation of the state, nobody from this zone had occupied the semblance of Government House, Umuahia.
And to compound matters, T. A. Orji anointed a lackey of his to succeed him and pushed it unobtrusively! This kind of imposition is why the state is still in the doldrums. Why should any governor insist on a particular aspirant if there is no skeleton in the governor’s cupboard? The general assumption is that when an outgoing governor installs a crony of his in office all his tracks would be covered unlike an “unknown” (relatively speaking) successor who is most likely to spill the beans! So, whenever you see an outgoing governor showing inexplicable and irrational vehemence over who takes over from him, know that this is the sole reason.


…Still on Kalu & APC

I am still in shock that a political icon and business mogul like Orji Uzor Kalu can descend so low as joining APC. Can he tell us exactly what he sees in that visionless party that convinced him to join them? Anyway, let us wait and see—maybe he will help them with his vast experience because Mr. President needs well-molded men like Kalu and other like-minds. Please tell him that while he is in Egypt he should not forget that he is a Jew.
(Emeka Aniakor, Jos/09094928006)
I sincerely want to appreciate you for educating some ignoramuses about our leader and my role model, His Excellency Orji Kalu. You have not just stated the obvious, but you have also shown your intellectual capacity and your mental prowess is exceptional. I have been an unrepentant follower of this man. I call him an institution. God will bless you for always standing by him even in the face of attacks from political hawks. Thanks for your wonderful articles on him and for him. We shall meet someday. My regards to OUK….
(Hon. Timothy/08084449845)

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