Envy is an evil that can hear only the voice of destruction, as much as avarice is a disease only greed can cure, which account for events lately depicting what could have become of God’s Own State, were it not extricated from the grip of a garrulous and virulent dictator who hallucinates till this moment, albeit unrepentantly, that Abia is his creation.
The reason for this ugly scenario is mainly derived from the fact that the anti-corruption agencies have failed to undertake their statutory responsibility of sanitising the society from the contamination of the pest that ravaged the economy of their states; otherwise people like Orji Uzor Kalu will stand no chance to abuse the sensibilities of a modern and decent society such as Abia State.
The recent barrage of misdemeanour targeted at the government and people of Abia is nothing but a smokescreen enduring only in mischief to hide the swindle and decay of the recent past where Kalu held sway in Abia until the current governor took the mantle of leadership from him. This write-up, however, is not intended to recount the ills that pervaded the Kalu administration, which is in the public domain, but to offer a word of caution to interlopers and predators alike who ordinarily would have been feeding fat on the fortunes and revenue of Abia, were it not for the divine intervention that severed Abia from long term plan to perpetually lacerate and incarcerate her economy.
The problem of Abia is the perilous and nightmarish indoctrination of Kalu’s administration which negativised all human endeavour for the fact that politics was left in the hands of a few hesitant politicians all of which have now changed, since Abia is fundamentally orientated in trade and commerce for which reasons the people cared less about partisan politics. Otherwise Kalu did not qualify to govern Abia because he did not possess the intelligence to handle such an intricate position. It is no use to bemoan the unfortunate past and the bad dream that befell a decent people like Abia in experiencing the government of a character who obtained favour by tricks from Prof. Jibril Aminu when he claimed he was son of the late stockfish merchant. The don was then Vice Chancellor at the University of Maiduguri.
Today, I watch with utmost befuddlement and consternation the claim by Kalu that Abia or its governor could not have been in existence without him. I think he is pushing his luck too far, because you should not throw stones from a glass house. I have not only known Kalu from 1981 in Maiduguri, but we lived together in the same flat and as such his antecedents are very well known to me. I hereby issue a warning that he either shuts his traps or we go the whole hog.
The claim by him to have installed this gentleman governor is a farce and, even if he did, it was with the intention to arm himself with a soft landing, believing that he had a willing tool cum partner in crime. But I put it to him that were it not that Theodore Orji was incarcerated, he could not have won that election, judging from the arsenal that was unleashed by then President Olusegun Obasanjo at that time. The man simply won the election because the people of Abia were sympathetic with his impudent, imprudent and unjustified victimisation for which reason they voted massively for him without collecting a dime from anybody. Today, the scars of the senseless confrontation with the federal might are embedded in the length and breadth of Abia as the state has not recovered from it, irrespective of the tireless efforts of the current governor.
Today, Kalu is not only abusing the ethics of journalism, but has debased the character and pedigree associated with the profession because, as the publisher of a news media, he has become a bull in a china shop and has thrown caution to the wind albeit, unfortunately, relishing in libelous vituperation.
The most important credence associated with Kalu’s regime was the intellectual backbone provided by Orji because he brought decorum and credibility to that administration and, today, Kalu cannot stomach the avalanche of developmental initiatives being instituted in Abia because this was not his original plan. But is there any need to continually cry over spilt milk?
In civilised climes, people like him cannot be allowed to walk the streets because of the economic sacrilege perpetrated against the state; but today, he is busy seeking undue attention by raising diversionary and inconsequential voice, hoping to blackmail and intimidate a sitting governor. He has forgotten that when one tiger was born in one town, another was also born in another town, and that no one has a complete repository of rascality of any form, and the lion is the king of the jungle that subdues the tiger.
• Onyechere was Publicity Secretary of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA).
