Gov Theodore Orji And Orji Kalu Fight Again

Nnamdi Felix/Abuja Following a temporary break in their political squabbles, Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State and his erstwhile benefactor, godfather and predecessor, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, are back to the trenches throwing punches at each other as they seek to outdo each another in their quest for political influence ahead of the 2015 general elections Governor Theodore Orji and his former boss and godfather, Orji Uzor Kalu, enjoyed a wonderful relationship. The governor was Kalu’s Chief of Staff for the eight years Kalu served as governor of the state. Their bond and confidence in each other then was clearly displayed in a political gimmick orchestrated and funded by the the former governor which led to the emergence of Theodore Orji as the governorship candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA, a party Kalu formed about four months to the end of his tenure in 2007 following his and his supporters’ exit from the Peoples Democratic Party. Kalu had run into troubled waters with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which could not arrest him then owing to his constitutional immunity. The agency took hold of Theodore Orji, Kalu’s Chief of Staff, but the former governor not only facilitated Orji’s emergence as the flag bearer of the PPA, he oiled the machinery with which Orji rode to power right from the Kirikiri Minimum Prison in Lagos, without the Orji participating in the rigours of political campaign activities and without even casting his vote for himself. However, as typical with political godfathers and godsons’ relationships in Nigeria, the duo soon fell apart, partly as a result of meddlesomeness on the part of the former governor and his overbearing mother, Madam Eunice Kalu, who was then in control of all the local governments’ administration and funds, as well as disagreements over the sharing formula of the state’s meagre resources. [caption id="attachment_10483" align="aligncenter" width="300"] •Theodore Orji: At war with the godfather[/caption] Relationship Gone Sour Governor Orji and his godfather, Kalu, enjoyed a remarkable comradeship upon his victory at the polls in 2007. Together, they fought the challenge to their political victory posed by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, whose candidate at that election was Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, a veteran journalist who enjoyed heavy support from then outgoing president, Olusegun Obasanjo. A protracted legal tussle ensued, from the Election Petitions Tribunal at Umuahia to the Appeal Court in Port Harcourt. At the end, the formidable partnership forged by Theodore Orji, Kalu and their party, the PPA, was rewarded as their victory at that election was affirmed by all the courts. Their relationship thereafter began to fall apart as cracks started to emerge at different parts of their once formidable alliance. By the governor’s account, as enunciated by Mr. Eze Chikamnayo, the governor’s special adviser on Information, Strategy and Civic Orientation, things started going awry immediately after their victory at the Court of Appeal. “By 2010, immediately after the victory of the PPA at the appeal court, the Orji Kalu clan moved in to quickly implement the next phase of the vicious hidden agenda of their dynasty. Having used the admirable image and good name associated with T.A. Orji to cross the chasm of the 2007 election, they decided it was time for him to give way.” [caption id="attachment_10482" align="aligncenter" width="200"] •Kalu: Angry with his successor[/caption] In the middle of the already tense relationship, Kalu issued Governor Orji a query on the platform of the PPA, accusing him of non-performance and requested that he resign from office for the alleged lapse. Chikamnayo claimed that Kalu used the PPA, which was firmly under his family’s control, to harass the governor, asking him to resign and make way for another pawn on the Kalu family’s chess board who, it was planned, would eventually hand power back to one of the Kalu siblings. He blamed the overbearing posture and insatiable greed of the former governor as the reason why no reasonable development could take place in the state. “The man, his mother, siblings and cronies were all over the place disdainfully disregarding the office of the governor, demanding total loyalty from him while looting the state dry.” On his part, the former governor, in a recent publication, challenged Governor Orji to go to a national television and tell the whole world what he did to him other than helping him become the governor of Abia State. “I have challenged him on a number of occasions to tell the world what really I did to him to warrant such detestable behaviour and enmity towards me. And if in the end I am guilty, I will apologise. I repeat the challenge through this column. Let him go to any national television and tell the whole world what I did to him to make him hate me with such venom. I have wondered why he has suddenly realised that I am such a bad person. Why did he not resign as my Chief of Staff if he knew I was a bad person as he would want Nigerians to believe?” He accused the governor of spreading falsehood about him with the intent to tarnish his reputation. “His speech at every public or private event begins and ends with my name, as if he has no other business in governance other than to abuse Orji Kalu. Not only that: he goes about telling all kinds of naked lies in order to soil my reputation. He also goes to gossip to the President and his wife about me, telling them unprintable things, just to disfavour me. He tells anybody he encounters – businessmen and women, politicians, the clergy, traders, farmers, drivers, carpenters, bricklayers, the high and mighty, lowly people, and just anybody – that I am his sworn enemy. He also takes his campaign of hate against me to the Diaspora. The situation is really getting out of hand,” the embattled Kalu lamented. The height of their soured relationship was at the run-up to the 2011 elections when the governor, who had decamped from the former governor’s PPA to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, spared nothing to stop his erstwhile party – the PPA – and godfather from getting any elective position both at the state House of Assembly and the National Assembly elections. The contest for the senatorial seat for Abia North, which the former governor contested, became a political war front of sort as Governor Orji teamed up with Senator Uche Chukwumerije, who was gunning for a third term at the senate, to inflict what can best be said to be the greatest political injury upon the former governor. Across polling units in the five local councils in Abia North, comprising of Arochukwu, Bende, Isuikwuato, Ohafia and Umunneochi, Senator Chukwumerije, who decamped from the PPA alongside Governor Orji to PDP, with the governor’s backing, severely trounced Kalu. Political leaders from the zone, especially those from Kalu’s home council, Bende, such as the then Commissioner for Education, Chief P. C. Mba and Cosmas Ndukwe, the general manager of the state Environmental Protection Agency, ASEPA, whom the former governor had a running battle with; as well as Chief Emma Omokwe and Dr. Iboko Imo Iboko, all aligned with Governor Orji to cut the former governor to size. At the end of the Abia North senatorial election, Kalu polled a meagre 34,188 votes to Chukwumerije’s 80,000-plus votes. In all the three senatorial zones and the eight members of the House of Representatives which were up for grabs in that election, Kalu’s PPA failed to secure a seat, even in Bende his domain. An Opposed Political Rebound Following the humiliating defeat which he and PPA suffered in the state, Kalu went into political hiatus. He took the time to attend to some of his business concerns which were under threat as public funds from the treasury of his state had ceased to flow in. Some of the contracts awarded to his chain of construction companies by the Theodore Orji administration were revoked, even as the governor went for a complete financial strangulation against his former boss’ interests in the state. At this period also, the former governor battled to save himself from a possible return to Kuje. Prisons in Abuja as Governor Orji caused those who stood surety for the former governor in his ongoing trial over alleged embezzlement by the EFCC to withdraw as Kalu’s sureties, so as to create a situation whereby the court would return the former governor to Kuje Prison pending his ability to secure other sureties. It is recalled that shortly after the expiration of his second term in office in 2007, the EFCC arraigned Kalu before a federal high court siting in Abuja on a 10-count charge bordering on money laundering, official corruption and diversion of public funds totaling over N5 billion. The case, which is still in court, has dragged while his airline, Slok Air, also went under not long after the airline was linked to some of the alleged stolen Abia State funds. Also, in 2010 Kalu was questioned by the American police after a female friend died in his U.S. home. A desperate Kalu soon abandoned the PPA and sought for re-admittance to his former party, the PDP, in a vain hope that his troubles would come to an end. The former governor pursued his re-entry bid with ferocious desperation because his life, businesses and political future depended on that. But Governor Orji, who has the machinery of the Abia chapter of the party in his firm control, would hear nothing of Kalu’s return to the PDP and he left no one in doubt about his intention to block such return. In February last year, the former governor declared that he had been readmitted into the fold of the PDP at his Igbere Ward A area of the state. He claimed that he rejoined the party on 17 January, 2013 and was issued registration number 9,787,945 at a reception he had organised for party members in his ward. The report of Kalu’s purported readmission to the PDP stirred controversy, especially in the Abia chapter of party. Governor Orji’s response to the report was instant. In less than 24 hours, the chairman of the party in the state, Senator Emma Nwaka, addressed a joint press conference with the party’s chairman in Bende Local Government Area, Chief Ihendu Boniface, where they refuted Kalu’s readmission story. They brought the party registers of the two wards in Igbere wards A and B and a stack of unissued PDP membership cards said to belong to the two wards. Nwaka flipped through the pages of the registers and affirmed that Kalu’s name was not in either of them and as such, he could not have been readmitted into the party. The state PDP chairman noted that there was no way Kalu could have been registered a week after the ward executives had resigned and submitted party documents in their possession. “If they gave him (Kalu) any card, it is fake,” he said, adding that the serial number of the cards issued to members in Igbere Ward A starts with “95” whereas the card purportedly issued to Kalu has “97” as the first two digits. Besides, he pointed out, brandishing a membership card was not enough to qualify anyone as a PDP member, but that the person’s name must be in the party’s register. Soon after that, the leadership and stakeholders of PDP in Bende Local Government Area held an emergency meeting and refuted Kalu’s claims. The meeting, which was convened “to put the records straight” on Kalu’s purported return, was attended by those in charge in Bende PDP. They included the two state legislators from Bende, Princewill Onyegbu, Bende South, and Ndukwe Ojukwu, Bende North, as well as the chairman and secretary of PDP in Bende, Eke and Oji Idika. In the three-point communiqué signed by 47 persons, the leaders and stakeholders declared that the PDP in Bende “has not changed its position nor lifted the embargo on the readmission of Chief Orji Uzor Kalu into PDP in Bende.” Similarly, members of the state House of Assembly faulted Kalu’s bid to return to the PDP fold and adopted a resolution at a plenary session where they refuted Kalu’s allegation that they told him that they were not getting anything from the government of Orji, describing the allegations as “blackmail and blatant lies” aimed at causing disaffection between the state legislature and the governor. On the heels of the renunciations by the Abia PDP, Governor Orji led chieftains of the party in the state to the national secretariat of the PDP in Abuja, to confer with the party’s national working committee on the issue. The national vice-chairman, South-East, of the party, Col. Austin Akobundu (rtd.), who read the position paper of the Abia stakeholders on the re-admission of Kalu to the party, submitted that such return would undermine the peaceful co-existence and camaraderie existing among party stalwarts in the state. He cautioned that any attempt to readmit the former governor would return the party in the state to the battlefield of hostilities. Akobundu further noted that Kalu’s readmission to the party would be inimical to the growth of the party in Abia, asserting that the former governor was not an asset to PDP: “Since his exit, PDP in Abia State has gone round the crisis and emerged from those experiences as an entirely different entity which today celebrates a prevailing atmosphere of unanimity, being relieved of the common source deep seated animosities and resentment.” Akobundu also pointed out that Kalu’s exit was the rallying point in reconciling aggrieved members and setting the party on a sound electoral footing, but cautioned that if the rumours making the rounds that Kalu was making surreptitious moves to be readmitted into the party’s fold were correct, then there would surely be cataclysmic consequences for the party in the state. Hitting in a final nail into Kalu’s political rebound efforts, the Abia stakeholders alleged that the former governor merely wanted to return to the party fold in order to use its platform for his 2015 presidential ambition. This allegation struck the right cord as the party, which is currently in a quagmire over a President Goodluck Jonathan’s candidacy and the likely divisions it would cause in the party in the face of strong suspicions over Sule Lamido’s presidential ambition, which Obasanjo is spearheading, would not condone any form of challenge to Jonathan’s 2015 dream. This sealed Kalu’s fate as the PDP leadership lost enthusiasm in his re-admittance and failed to make any declaration that his bid. As expected, this did not go down with the former governor. He took to his column in The SUN newspapers, to haul invectives at Governor Orji, whom he accused of being a chameleon: “I must openly submit that I was taken in by his facial appearance, not knowing that deep inside he was a different person altogether – a chameleon. Subsequent events have since proved me right. Up till this moment, I still do not believe that it was the same Theodore Orji, whom I met at Chief Mark Uka Ogwo’s house that is hauling abuses at me on a daily basis and walking the corridors of power like a colossus. He calls me all kinds of names and uses every available medium to castigate my person.” Outlining the grounds for his anger against the governor, Kalu stated that Governor Orji lied against him to President Jonathan and his wife, Patience. “He goes about telling all kinds of naked lies in order to soil my reputation. He also goes to gossip to the President and his wife about me, telling them unprintable things, just to disfavour me” but added that “I am certain by now the President and others he had lied to against me would have known the truth – that the man is a pathological liar and a usurper. No God-fearing person would go to the level he has gone in seeking vengeance, if indeed I had done any wrong against him.” Alluding to the determination of the governor to create political problems for him, Kalu asserted that Orji has been going about concocting all sorts of tales in order to destroy his reputation and create conflict between him and others. “To show how heartless the man is, he has even leveled some grievous allegations against me in order to get at me for no justifiable reason.” Their 2015 Political Postulations In September 2012, reports emerged indicating that the former governor would contest the 2015 presidential election. Kalu was reported to have kicked off his campaign at Ile-Ife, the ancestral home of the Yoruba, in Osun State. He was said to have had a hush-hush meeting with the Ooni of Ife, Okunade Sijuwade, to lobby for the support of the powerful monarch in his quest to become Nigeria’s president in 2015. Kalu’s 2015 aspiration was however nipped in the bud following a resolution of the Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the foremost Igbo socio-cultural association, to secure block votes for President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 presidential election. The association held consultations with prominent Igbo citizens, including the former Abia governor, calling on them to shed their ambition of contesting the 2015 presidential election. The apex Igbo body said it did so in the interest of peace and unity, noting that a president of Igbo origin would emerge at the appropriate time. On Kalu’s presidential ambition, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo President, Chief Gary Nnachi Enwo-Igariwey, stated that he urged Kalu to drop his presidential ambition, noting that the move was strategic and would enable the Igbo to speak with one voice on the 2015 presidential election. He added that his discussion with Kalu started about seven months back, when he met the former governor in Abuja to urge him to comply with the Igbo cause by reconsidering his plan to run: “We no longer want a situation where we speak from different points and our agenda should be the same. I have talked to him about his views. I have appealed to him to shelve it in the interest of the Igbo nation. I have appealed to him to join hands with us and at the appropriate time when we make our statement, it will be with one voice as a people.” Indicating his acceptance of the position of the apex Igbo body, Kalu announced his totally withdrawal from the 2015 presidential race after intense pressure from Ohanaeze Ndigbo over six months. He added that his decision to withdraw from the race was informed by his determination to ensure continued peace and unity among his kinsmen. “We felt that it will not be in our general interest to have divided view on 2015 presidency. I went to tell the President of Ohaneze Ndigbo that I want to run for Presidency and he told me not to pursue that ambition now. I will abide by my discussion with him because Igbos are one. I will not divide and would not want Igbos to be divided. I will always be an instrument to make peace in Igboland,” Kalu said. Kalu was however displeased that in spite of his public declaration that he would not contest the 2015 presidential election, Governor Orji who, as a PDP governor with access to the Presidency, is not letting the issue lie. His frustration over the uncertainty in his re-admission to the PDP as well as its effects on his business and political interests may have contributed to their return to hostilities, with each attacking the other in the media space. Kalu is also reported to be nursing a plan to re-contest for the Abia North senatorial seat on the platform of his former party, the PPA, even as he continues to press for his re-admittance into the PDP. On the other hand, Governor Theodore Orji’s senatorial ambition is no longer a secret. Like his counterparts in Enugu, Delta and Akwa Ibom states, Governor Orji, at a recent civic reception held by the people of Umuahia North, Umuahia South and Ikwuano local government areas of the state, declared his intension to run for the senate in 2015. The governor stated that his decision to go to the senate was due to pressure from his people to run for the senate and that he had no choice than to accept their request. “For some time now, there has been so much pressure coming from different groups, communities, individuals and organisations that I should run for the senate. Since this is coming from my people, I have no choice than to accept the demand,” he said.