A clear conscience they say fears no accusation. The guilty, on the other hand, habitually wanders from one self-indictment to another, being at war with himself and concluding that arrangements have been perfected to bring him to justice.
The former governor of Abia State, Chief (Dr?) Orji Uzor Kalu, whose eight-year official tenure and three years of imposed control of the fortunes of Abia State left nothing for which Abia people can be proud of has continued t-o indicate interest in stirring the honest’s nest in God’s Own State,
Kalu’s latest idler’s provocative utterances are contained on page 43 of This Day Newspaper of Friday 19th October, 2012. Speaking through his specie Adviser; Political; Oyekunie Oyewunmi; Kalu who no doubt, has become? Prisoner of self-guilt expressed apprehension of what he assumes the likelihood of being ‘probed by the Abia State Government’.
There is no doubting the fact that deep down his heart Kalu knows dial one of the administrative cum judicial legacies the Chief T. A. Orji’s administration should not fail to leave for Abians is not to subject Kalu’s stewardship to .proper accountability. Since Kalu knows this is a necessary step, he should not resort to any panic measure or hide under any cover to seek for public sympathy.
Kalu in his present state of trauma and disorganization/ should also leave God out of it. By trying to claim that he ‘Governed Abia with the fear of God; Kalu is unwarrantedly trying to remind Abians how badly humiliated they felt under his administration which consistently insisted on coercing supporters into one form of fettishness or another.
If he knew God existed and believed in Him, why should he have taken his followers to Umuhuezechi in his Bende Local Government Area or Okija in Anambra State for idolatrous administration of oath of extra-judicial allegiance to his family?
The former Governor should not be mischievous in trying to play on the intelligence of Abians by spuriously assuming he was responsive to the people’s plight. Does Kalu want to pretend to have forgotten that during his tenure my Oil producing people of Ukwa-West pleaded with him unaccountably for the establishment of Abia State Oil Producing Area Development Commission but all their pleas only amounted to hitting the head against a brick wall? He is not happy that what he denied Oil-producing communities of the state, Ochendo, without any hesitation abundantly gave to them. Is it not rather unfortunate that Kalu who, as soon as he was elected Governor assumed the regrettable role of an infant-terrible by crudely insulting all the powers that were in Nigeria and by so doing alienated Abia State from Nigeria’s main stream politics is still deceiving himself with the hallucination of Igbo liberation.
Being driven by parochial and selfish motives, Kalu set up his ‘Orji Uzo Kalu Free Medical Service’, an outlet he cleverly used to extort one million naira monthly from each of the seventeen Local Government Councils of the State. The quality of service rendered by this revenue sapping unit was not as good as one that a patriotic .and more organized mobile dispensary could/ ordinarily have offered. Kalu for eight years could not lay even one foundation stone of a maternity in the state not to talk of a Primary Health Centre.
But the people’s Governor, Chief T. A. Orji, whom he has recklessly and preposterously resolved to cast aspersion upon, has, despite all challenges, built, equipped and staffed two hundred and ten Primary Health Centers in the State. Chief T. A. Orji’s administration has built two functional diagnostic centres, one at Umuahia and the other at Aba. The hitherto ill-equipped Amachara General Hospital has been redesigned, reconstructed, equipped and re-engineered to effectively serve as a specialist Hospital. Orji Kalu, for
Eight plus three years, represented darkness and retrogression and, so, lacks basis for comparison with Ochendo.
Orji Kalu, in his desperation to paint white black talked of ‘over bearing corruption’. Does Kalu think that. Abians have forgotten too soon that equipment ordered by the state Government to modernize the Abia News Paper;. The Ambassador disappeared into the thin air and before they could say Jack Robinson, they had started seeing “The Sun” on the streets of Nigeria-Roads in Aba have always given headache to governments of the day. Kalu, in his commercial amnesia/ would forget that the late charismatic Governor of Old Imo State; Chief Sam Mbakwe, Ph.D, whom he was treating with unmitigated contempt while he was Governor of Abia State, became known as a weeping Governor because of roads in Aba. Governor T. A. Orji has indicated clear interest in rehabilitating roads in Aba. This interest is evident in Aba – Owerri Road which he has dialyzed, Ukwu-Mango, Samek and Danfodio roads. Despite the rains, palliative measures are being put in place on such other roads as Brass, Faulks and Port-Harcourt. Above all, the Governor has assured Aba residents of a full scale rehabilitation of roads as soon the rains abate.
By God’s grace, Ochendo will leave Office on 29th May, 2015 and Commissioners that are currently serving under him, could then beat then-chests and say; our governor built
1. A four-storey elevator-installed civil service secretariat
2. Five thousand capacity international conference centre
3. A new Government House,
4. New High Court buildings at Umuahia and Aba
5. Befitting office complexes at the Ministry of Justice
6. A forty-eight one storey office complex at the Broadcasting cooperating of Abia/
7. Amaokwe Housing Estate
8. Amauba Housing Estate
9. Development of an Industrial Market at Ndume
10. Umuahia Modem Market,
11. Two hundred and ten Primary Health Centres
12. Two Diagnostic Centres
13. Re-designation and Structural Up-liftment of Amachara Specialist Hospital
14. Renovation of Nnamdi Azikiwe Secretariat
15. Rehabilitation of many roads in the State
16. Initiated and enhanced payment of a minimum wage of twenty thousand and one hundred naira to Abia Public Servants
17. Reintegrated Abia to Nigerian’s main stream politics,
18. Unified the generality of Abians
19. Re-directed the government of God’s own state to God
20. Released one billion naira Agric interest free loan to Abians and
21. Worked in harmonious synergy with Mr. President to resuscitate NNPC Depot at Osisioma which became dysfunctional during the era of Orji Kalu.
What can those who served under Orji Kalu as governor point at as legacies of that administration?
It is high time Orji Kalu learnt to appreciate that having murdered sleep in Abia State/ he would remain tormented and may sleep no more. He should realize that trying to distract the good government and people of Abia State through irresponsible speculative accusation of acquisition of wealth by the incumbent governor who is irrevocably determined to leave quantifiable legacies has only gone to strengthen an already held opinion that Kalu’s characteristic stock-in-trade is enshrined in falsehood and cheap blackmail.
