A particular reader from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, keeps haranguing me any time I write about or mention in passing Theodore Ahamefule Orji’s name and wonders when I will stop doing that. I will never decline until he apologizes for his irredeemable atrocities against Abians generally and me particularly. Nobody should waste their time appealing to my conscience on this interminable matter.
And those who also declare that in the future Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu and T. A. Orji would reconcile and I would be the fall-guy, I have no regrets for such an eventual development and until it happens I stand on my position with regard to both men.
Another group of stakeholders equally insist that both men underdeveloped Abia and as such I should not hold only one man culpable. In fact, they argue that Kalu is the greater sinner in the Abia retrogression! All these are mere conjectures which I leave to posterity to adjudicate on. But for me, as I had pointed out on these pages sometime ago, if Kalu was bad during his time, T. A. Orji was irrefutably worse and worst by extrapolation to previous administrators and governors of the state.
Let me underscore a critical point lest I am misconstrued: I have always canvassed that both former governors should reconcile for multifarious reasons. Nobody should have the erroneous impression that I am stoutly opposed to any such make-up irrespective of the magnitude of what must have transpired. If we do not unconditionally forgive one another, our heavenly father will not forgive us. I hope I have not contradicted myself with this eschatological underpinning!
From time to time, the vanishing tribe of bunkums inexplicably opposed to Kalu churn out faceless and nondescript outfits that indulge in pathological and dysfunctional dissemination of concocted yarns.
One of such pedestrian stupefactions with a nomenclatural duplicity of “Abia Stakeholders (sic) Forum” long ago took a full-page advertorial swipe in THE NATION for a preposterous and poorly-written rejoinder to an earlier olive branch extended by Kalu in his rapprochement with those who disagree with him and in precipitation to his recurring apology to Abians for foisting Theodore Ahamefule Orji, a man in the vanguard of fluke legacies, on them. The empty rebuttal was entitled “Re (sic): Now is the time for peace and reconciliation”.
It is either the person who scribbled the trash did not read Kalu’s two-page treatise or did not comprehend the content. This reminds me of Abraham Lincoln’s evergreen words: “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubts.” If such limitations were pigeonholed, there would have been no need for this subject.
The tepid and thoughtless rejoinder was signed by three fictitious characters on behalf of their imaginary members with no official address or contact details, typically! This is not the first and will not be the last. It is obvious words have lost their meanings. If not, why would a bunch of rascally scallywags constitute themselves into “Abia stakeholders”? Who are these “stakeholders” and where are they now post-T. A. Orji mirage? When have a few apologists become the conscience of a state, particularly my state? Stake-holding has suddenly become the pastime of government pikins—a dwindling clan of political jobbers—are now loosely and drunkenly referred to as “stakeholders”!
The war-mongers in their clownish rejoinder said they were “grossly embarrassed by that unnecessary effusion from Chief Kalu”. If these fellows were not cowardly agents of bellicosity whose real identities will never be disclosed, what is embarrassing about a peaceful man offering a hand of reconciliation? It is only in the insanity of sustained belligerency that such a development could be embarrassing. What is it that is fundamentally wrong with Kalu’s proposition? Is it not better to jaw-jaw than war-war? Must political disagreements be allowed to become festering sores? A lot of hangers-on must be benefiting from the status quo and will do everything within their devilishness to sustain the imbroglio. There is no way anyone can rationalize this deviancy other than crisis jobbery!
Another excerpt from the forum’s kindergarten stuff goes thus: “Chief Orji Kalu is being uncharitable to his Successor (unnecessary capitalization) Chief T. A. Orji by blaming his woes on him. Abians know the difference between the locust years and 2007-2015.” The tomfools who placed the advertorial in question should not arrogate any power to themselves. Kalu has never blamed T. A. Orji for his political trajectory. A lot of people muddle up issues concerning Kalu’s political career and the inevitabilities of some undercurrents. T. A. Orji as an individual does not have the capacity, clout and competency to undermine his predecessor’s political fortunes.
Which “woes” are these vagabonds referring to? Kalu’s business conglomerate is flourishing with his latest membership of the Club of 50 Richest Africans according to Forbes international magazine and supranational economic investments. From all indications, Kalu, a founding member and one of the foundational financiers of the PDP, is having political ascendancy to the chagrin of his vicious detractors, most especially with his epochal defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC)
It is a monumental mistake to ever compare Kalu’s illuminative tenure with his successor’s darkish regime. It is akin to comparing water and oil, light and darkness, reality and propaganda, ad infinitum. Between 1999 and 2007, most Aba roads, for instance, had a fair utilitarian value unlike the current craters. When I hear or read about make-believe “legacy projects” of T.A. Orji’s administration that are sparsely located in and around Umuahia. During Dr. Kalu’s era, there was no systemic prostitution, no kidnapping of political foes, wilful repression of the media and systematic emasculation of free speech, among other infringements on freedom of information. No editor was abducted and handcuffed by 17 armed-to-the-teeth policemen from his Lagos home and driven to Umuahia in handcuffs at the instance of ex-Gov. Orji, Kalu did not mess up his predecessor for any reason whatsoever.
Can anyone volunteer and take me round Abia State to go and see Ochendo’s much-talked-about “legacy projects”. Are they located outside the purview of The Sun correspondents in the South East? The worsening dilapidation of social infrastructures as captured by the national media is a clear testament to the glorious period of Kalu
As I had also pointed out elsewhere, there should be an acceptability/popularity contest/march between Kalu and T. A. Orji in major cities of Abia without any security details. Such an exercise will enable us to know whose tenure impacted on the lives of the people more, Aba residents that I know by years of domicile and association will stone T. A. Orji and toast to the goodness of the Kalu years. I am so certain and feverish of this suggestion that I can’t wait for it to take place.