Orji Uzor Kalu's funny politics
There is a peculiar species of Nigerian politician who mistakes noise for authority, name-dropping for power, and the passage of time for the conferment of ill earned relevance and Senator
There is a peculiar species of Nigerian politician who mistakes noise for authority, name-dropping for power, and the passage of time for the conferment of ill earned relevance and Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, the ebullient former Governor of Abia State and Senator representing Abia North, has in recent weeks provided the Nigerian political theatre with its most entertaining act yet, one that would be entirely hilarious were it not so brazenly audacious and, frankly, so dangerously destabilising.
It began, as most of Kalu's political performances tend to, on social media. With the theatrical flair of a man who believes the world holds its breath awaiting his raucous dispatches, Orji announced to Nigerians , via his various handles that he had met with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and, in what can only be described as a breathtaking flight of political fancy, implied that the President had effectively anointed him as the Coordinator of the All Progressives Congress in Abia State. The announcement landed with the kind of confident swagger reserved for men who have confused access for appointment, proximity for power, and a handshake with Mr. President for a formal instrument of delegation.
Let us be charitable and grant that the meeting occurred. Let us even grant that pleasantries of the warmest variety were exchanged and that they both shared a plate of lafun and gbegiri together. What cannot be granted, not even in the most generous reading of the encounter, is that any such coordinatorship was conferred. Such shameless name-dropping is not only far from the truth, it is an avid departure from what is legally, constitutionally, and procedurally obtainable within the APC's own framework.
The APC Constitution is unambiguous on this matter. The leadership of the party in any given state is vested in the highest-ranking political office holder that the party produces in that state. It is a principle not of sentiment, not of seniority in age, and certainly not of the length of one's gubernatorial tenure in a previous dispensation. To invoke one's status as the "oldest ex-governor" of Abia State as a basis for party coordination is to engage in what our Igbo brothers might recognise as pure political 'jibiti' a sophisticated species of subterfuge dressed in the garments of legitimacy. It has no locus standi. It holds no water constitutionally. It is, at best, an aspiration masquerading as a fait accompli.
And this brings us to the most grievous dimension of this entire episode, the affront it constitutes on the office of the Rt. Honourable Benjamin Kalu, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Benjamin Kalu is not merely a political figure of note. He is the Number Six in Nigeria's constitutional line of power, a distinction that places him above premiers, above senators, above commissioners, and let me add above the most weathered and celebrated of retired governors. For Orji Uzor Kalu to seek to arrogate to himself the leadership of a party apparatus that rightfully, constitutionally, and procedurally belongs to the Deputy Speaker is not merely an overreach. It is an affront so sordid, brazen, and unbecoming.
The irony, of course, is that this same Orji Uzor Kalu spent the better part of the last three years with his back firmly turned on the APC in Abia State. While the party struggled to find its footing in a state where the opposition held firm control, it was not Orji who was in the trenches. It was Benjamin Kalu who was funding, courting, and painstakingly assembling political blocs within the state. It was Benjamin Kalu who, at considerable personal and political cost, threw his weight behind the mobilisation for President Tinubu's election and reelection, taking flak from all quarters for his insistence principled and unwavering that Abia must connect with the centre. He did not flinch. He did not abandon the ship. He built the ship, plank by plank, while others lounged comfortably on the shore.
Now, with the scent of 2027 drifting unmistakably through the air, Orji Uzor Kalu has roused himself from his political slumber and arrived, bugle in hand, to lead troops he abandoned. He wishes to reap where he has not sowed, to harvest from a farm he neither ploughed nor watered, to command soldiers he left to fend for themselves in the cold of political winters past.
One is compelled to ask the obvious question: why now? Why did Orji's Methuselahic instinct for party leadership remain entirely dormant when Uche Ogah was flying the APC flag in 2019, and when Ikechi Emenike was bearing the party's standard in 2023? Where was the "oldest ex-governor's" burning desire to coordinate and lead? Why has this peculiar erection of political ambition only presented itself as the calendar inches toward 2027? The answer, one suspects, has very little to do with the party and very much to do with a dynasty and the penchant for sabotage.
What Orji seems to want is not party coordination. What he wants is a dynasty. He is already a Senator. His younger brother Mascot is positioning for the gubernatorial ticket. His daughter serves as an ambassador. Another sibling, Uzor Kalu, occupies a position at the National Assembly Service Commission. And now, the whispers suggest, a paramour of the Kalu political household is casting covetous eyes at a House of Representatives ticket. The word 'Haba' feels entirely inadequate, but it will have to do.
On the matter of his having "made" Benjamin Kalu, a claim Orji has reportedly made with the casual confidence of a man unbothered by complexity let us be generous to a fault and concede the point entirely. Let us agree, for the sake of argument, that Orji selected Ben Kalu, groomed him, presented him to the world, and perhaps why not even personally negotiated the terms of Ben Kalu's lovely wife's affections on his behalf. Granted. Conceded. Signed and sealed. But must Obi remain a boy forever? Must a man who has risen to the position of Deputy Speaker in the Federal Republic of Nigeria remain in perpetual political servitude to the man who once gave him a leg up? Is gratitude a life sentence? Is mentorship a deed of ownership? These questions answer themselves.
Meanwhile, the one figure withinthe rank and file of Abia APC who could credibly go toe-to-toe with Governor Alex Otti, possessing the reach, the resources, the structure, and the constitutional gravitas to help secure the president's fortunes in Abia ahead of 2027, is Benjamin Kalu. To weaken him is to weaken the party. To undermine him is to hand Otti, the Labour Party and other forms of opposition the gift of a divided opposition. One cannot forget, in this context, the cautionary tale of how Orji's interventions in the political career of the Alex Ekwueme in 1999 and again in 2003 ended in sabotage and sorrow, or what played out in 2023 when he supported the aspiration of his brother Mascot Kalu against the candidature of Ikechi Emenike. Abia APC would do well to hold that history close, study it carefully, and resist the siren song of a man whose political record is as long on ambition as it is short on loyalty.
The stage is set, the actors are in position, and the drama of Abia's 2027 politics is only beginning. But as the curtain rises, one truth shines with the luminosity of the midday sun: that great parties are not built by those who arrive at harvest time with empty baskets and loud proclamations, but by those who stayed through the planting, endured the rains, and tendered the soil when no one was watching. Benjamin Kalu did that work. The crown of that labour shall not be snatched by the nimble fingers of political opportunism no matter how loudly the claimant announces his meeting with Mr. President.
Funny politics, indeed. But Abians are watching and they shouldn't be amused.
