A fortnight ago, THISDAY, THE SATURDAY NEWSPAPER, of November 26, 2016, published on page 21 a concise and dispassionate commentary on the epochal defection of the former governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, to the All Progressives Congress (APC). The candid intervention was perceptively entitled “Orji Uzor Kalu’s Bold Step”.
Today, I reproduce, with copyright permission, the illuminative contribution because of its therapeutic and elucidatory contents especially in a villainous political landscape amid concomitant vilification.
Here we go: “NOT many saw it coming. But the news of the defection of Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, a former governor of Abia State, to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, did not come as a big surprise to many informed watchers of politics in Nigeria.
“But what one may not understand is the frenzy it has generated in some quarters, particularly from those who have been questioning the rationale.  But his loyalists maintain that Kalu’s political influence is enormous and his larger-than-life image is simply out of this world.
“While trying to rationalize this move, some of his fans hinted that the development took its root the very day President Muhammadu Buhari became the standard bearer of the APC.  They added that many had underestimated his closeness to Buhari. In fact, they are quick to make reference to the day when Kalu,  as a governor in 2003, conferred Buhari with an honorary doctorate degree at the Abia State University as well as when Buhari was honoured with a traditional title of Ugwu Agu (King of Lion)  in his home town.
“Also, according to his loyalists, when the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA was launched in Abuja 2003 by Kalu, the ex-military ruler was a special guest of honour on the occasion, where he described Kalu as a detribalized politician.
“The sources revealed further that Kalu, while attending a campaign rally for Buhari in 2011, had told the world that Nigeria needed Buhari more than he needed the country. This, we gathered, shocked everybody, including the then president, Goodluck Jonathan.
“One of the sources hinted further that many are not aware that it was actually the businessman who brokered peace between the President and the former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, in his Igbere hometown some years back.
“THISDAY also learnt that his defection had been predicted in 2015 when his brothers, Hon. Nnanna Uzor Kalu and Mr. Mascot Uzor Kalu, were led by their mother, Eunice Uzor Kalu, to defect to the party in April 2015, shortly after Buhari won the presidential election. At the defection rally, she was said to have  predicted that the former governor would soon join the party. So, could he simply be fulfilling the promise of his mother?
“It is a fact that Kalu’s success story, in the past years, is attributed to hard work, dedication, perseverance and goodwill.   His influence and power spread beyond the shores of this country.
“Over the years, he has been an evolving phenomenon in every aspect of life.  Or how else  can one describe this man who still remains relevant many  years after leaving office as the number one citizen of Abia State?”


…Other views

Dear Wabara, I wish to once more thank you for continuously defending Kalu’s defection to APC, an act which constitutes no crime in any democratic setting. I don’t know why people take so much interest in anything Kalu does politically. Perhaps this goes to suggest that the man is destined to be something in the near future. In fact, the time is fast approaching when his detractors will swallow their vomit because Dr. Kalu remains the proverbial cow that has no tail whose its god drives away flies from. Thanks and have a blissful week.
Maurice Umeakuka, Ph.D
Federal Polytechnic, Oko, Anambra State
YOUR defence of Kalu in the series of your writings is just a mere fallacy. Everybody knows that he decamped (sic) to APC just to avert the trial he is facing with EFCC. It is not about the bringing together of the G-34 that made him to join APC.
(08036180567)
YOU may lose your job if you continue to write like this. (Don, Nnewi/08031386142)
KALU in APC: Well done. Keep it up! Time shall tell!
L. Y. Kopsam/08073974798
YOUR piece on “Kalu in APC: My reservations” was fantastic. (08037460829)
THANK you for the thought-provoking article, “Kalu in APC: My reservations”. I will continue to read your articles now that I know you are a man of integrity, dynamic and purposeful. Not a yes man lusting after bread and butter. Peace of Christ be with you.
Okoro (08187172170)
YOU just made my day. You are the kind of an adviser that President Buhari should look for. Please continue with your good works.  Dr. Chuka/08060587654
YOUR piece on “Kalu, EFCC and APC” is as lucid as it is educative, insightful and enlightening. Well crafted. Kudos…08032159249
WHILE not denying Kalu his constitutional right of association, his nomadic politics shows lack of ideology or belief. What does Kalu stand for in politics? A legislator (1992-1993), governor (1999-2007), presidential and senatorial candidate….
Hon. Ihuoma, Abuja/08060019005
WE, his supporters from South-South, cannot go with him to APC. (09061631638)
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 must be frank with you I am not comfortable with Kalu’s defection to APC. This is a party we want to do away with in the next dispensation. (08137020638)
MR. Wabara, you can speak all the grammar in the dictionary but truth is constant. OUK has the right to join any political party of his choice, but you can never change the fact that Abia State is the least developed state in Southern Nigeria courtesy of OUK and THEODORE ORJI. (08033776685)
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 Oga….(Hon. Timothy/08084449845)

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For Azuka & Nwamadi

ONE of those who accommodated me in the barbaric days of Theodore Ahamefule Orji when I had to abandon my home, RCCG Pastor Chima Azuka of Okpulukwu Umuosu Nsulu, Isi-alangwa North LGA of Abia State, will bury his mother, Mrs. Rose Nwaobilaku Azuka (Nee Olugele) (1924-2016), a virtuous woman who died on September 26, this year. A service of songs will be held on December 29 and the next day a funeral service followed by interment. On January 1, 2017, the family will hold a thanksgiving service at the Assemblies of God Church, Owerri Umuosu Nsulu. May her gentle soul rest in peace.
I also commiserate with a colleague of mine in the old Daily Times and fellow Great Akokite, Mr. Martins Uba Nwamadi, on the demise of his mother, Mrs. Ezinne Maltida Amadi. She will be buried on December 22, 2016, after a funeral service at Holy Ghost Parish Avuru Aboh-Mbaise LGA of Imo State.
It is my prayer that this matriarchal Amazon will rest in God’s bosom while Martins gets the divine fortitude to trudge along in her absence, especially in this time of national leadership crisis.
May my extended brother-in-law Azuka, Martins and all other bereaved persons involved in rites of passage for their beloved ones at this time find solace in the Lord.