EBERE WABARA [email protected] 08055001948
ANYTIME I comment on the previous abject poverty of leadership in Abia in this column or elsewhere, I receive an avalanche of moronic feedback one of which goes thus: “The rot in the state started with your boss/ master/principal/’oga’/benefactor/publisher etc. So, stop defending him perpetually and now stylishly trying to clear the way for his senatorial ambition.” Whether I justifiably root for Dr. Kalu’s senatorial certainty or not, there would be no repeat of what hap pened last year. In this re-run without any mutilation of results, Dr. Kalu will coast to victory everything points to that. I have no apologies to hypercritics on this senatorial reality.
The Appeal Court ruling was a clear vindication of the electoral theft that denied Dr. Kalu his overwhelming mandate. The only way to stop him was to mutilate the result of the election at all costs. I am still peeved that the beneficiary and perpetrators of this roguery are not behind bars yet while we go for re-run. I just hope it would not be the same electoral officials that would oversee
the poll. I have the conviction that Dr. Kalu will reclaim his mandate to the chargrin and disappointment of the official bandits that criminally hijacked it from him last year.
A selfless politician who has made his money and wants to serve unlike most others who are so poor that they see politics as the easiest route to amass wealth without any vision or knowledge of what is expected of them. Check out the profiles of most lawmakers and their counterparts in the executive arm and juxtapose their impoverished past with the currency of inexplicable affluence. Most of them you cannot trace any meaningful source of livelihood until they came into politics. Elsewhere, people go into politics to serve, but here it is to loot and remain docile. This is the point of departure and difference between a Kalu in the senate and his main challenger.
If this were a football contest, it would be a walkover as there is indeed no basis for any competition between Dr. Kalu and others in the race with him. Where do we start? Is it national recognition, contribution to economic and political development of the country, courage to confront agents of darkness irrespective of their official status? Is it his global contacts that can network with Nigeria for its transformation? How many politicians generally and of South East extraction particularly have such characterizations?
Effective representation in the National Assembly demands a lot of sophistication, sagacity and profuse profiling. It is not for persons that will spend four years in the red chamber without any impact. Who does not know in this country that Dr. Kalu has all the attributes and more? Considering the forego- ing and the critical element of mutilation of result, I had expected the Appeal Court to go
ahead and declare him the winner of that election even if on compensatory considerations which will equally serve as a de terrent to other electoral thieves who still prowl in Abia North Senatorial District.
Dr. Kalu’s antecedents irrefutably speak volumes. He has a pedigree that will guarantee him victory this Saturday. I have the unflinching belief that this golden opportunity will not slip by again. By the time he lands at the Senate, even the flora in the vicinity will know that a game changer has arrived! I am sure all the detractors of this one-time action governor will remain per- plexed till 2019 and beyond when he would have consolidated beyond description. If it were possible to stop the moving train that Dr. Kalu has become, the Patriots, Abia Elders (now duplicitous Ukwa-Ngwa Elders) and the latest creation, Abia Guardians of Equity (whatever that means), would have foreclosed Dr. Kalu’s anticipatory kiss of victory. Unfortunately, the resurgence of these associations with the same fluid membership cannot embark on such a suicidal mission and lose my governor’s (no pun intended!) monthly patronage and Toyota Prado SUVs as the icing on the cake!
It is obvious that God will perfect this mandate because of the revolutionary impact Dr. Kalu will make at the National As- sembly. Our Creator started the process with the intervention of the Appeal Court. He is a gift to our generation for those who do not mismanage (this word again) him. His membership of the red chamber will transcend development of Abia to that of the nation one way or another. The young man is a supranational player who is not limited to Umuahia and Abuja! Nigerians in the Diaspora can testify to this.
Dr. Kalu’s contributions to humanity are nationalistic and transnationalistic such that not just Abians will benefit from his legislative agenda, but the entirety of our compatriots. He is used to such public life service that the National Assembly will become catalytic dais for the actualization of his uplift programme for humankind.
There is no probability of whether Dr. Kalu would be elected or not. We should by now be discussing what he is going to do with his divine mandate. What constitute his agenda? How does he intend to get other senators to uplift the life of the citizenry, especially the less privileged? These are the issues facing us and not his chances in the re-run.
The vanishing tribe of Kalu haters that succeeded in 2011 in aborting this same quest and repeated it last year have had their last attempt as nothing of such can happen again in the present dispensation. Any such idiocy will be crushed beyond recognition. Let any- one try mutilating the result of the re-run and see how he will catch fire without any physicality.Dr. Kalu will not be in the senate for tokenist constituency projects like borehole inauguration and distribution of tricycles. He is going there to make input on holistic and sustainable development of South East and Nigeria because he is a national and international player as opposed to the provincialism of his opponents and clan of detractors whose circumscribed economic and political trajectories do not transcend Government House, Umuahia, in pursuit of exclusive survival- ism!
For Mmiririri enyi, Ozo Igbo ndu, Ohich- aranwa ogbuenye anya miri, et al, the senate beckons! By the time Dr. Kalu gets there, Nigerians will know the difference between legislative lethargy and legislative activism.