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ORJI UZOR KALU: Beyond The Optics Of Solidarity Visits |MUST READ

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His story is quite familiar but no less interesting despite how often it is told and retold – his grass to grace experience early in life, his emergence as governor of Abia State at the age of 39, his longstanding presidential ambition, his attempts to become a senator and the fateful twist of his protracted corruption trial which landed him in prison only for him to be released unconditionally few months after, courtesy of a Supreme court verdict.

Orji Uzor Kalu, also known as OUK, has been at the centre of many controversies nearly for as long as he has been in active partisan politics. It is arguable if any politician of South East extraction, in contemporary history, has been more discussed than OUK. His conviction by a Federal High Court on corruption charges towards the end of 2019 was a massive media sensation. So was the Supreme Court verdict that eventually nullified his conviction.

Not a few persons had believed that OUK would actually serve out his 12-year prison sentence. To such persons he was already a relic of the past as a political gladiator. The clamour and scramble for his replacement in the Senate gained momentum by the day. Until the unexpected news of the Supreme Court ruling that set him free hit the airwaves.

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Since after he left prison, OUK has been the centre of attraction in Nigeria’s political scene as high profile politicians have taken turns to pay him solidarity visits in his residence at Abuja. His release from prison seemed to have conferred on him a new celebrity status which many of his colleagues have been very keen to identify with.

The Senate President, Alhaji Ahmed Lawan started the ‘pilgrimage’. Many other senators and other politicians across the country have since followed suit. The most remarkable of his post-incarceration visits however were those of his perceived arch political rival who succeeded him as governor of Abia State, Senator Theodore Orji and his son, Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji, currently serving as Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly. As the public took in the news reports of these solidarity visits, it was announced that OUK had been elected as Chairman of the Abia State caucus of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

The largely unexpected release of OUK from prison, and the spate of solidarity visits he has enjoyed so far, are essentially adjudged to be significant on two major fronts: on the national scene, these events are taking place at a time when the clamour for a Nigerian president of Igbo extraction in 2023 is at its feverish peak and OUK is seen as a formidable contender. On the Abia political scene, the visits to OUK particularly by Senator Theodore Orji and Rt. Hon. Chinedum Orji, are perceived by political pundits to be part of an emerging alliance aimed at ensuring that in 2023, the Old Bende political bloc would successfully wrest power from the Ukwa Ngwa bloc which appears to be determined to retain power in 2023, hinged on the argument that Ukwa Ngwa bloc needs to balance the Abia power dynamics by retaining power for 16 years as Old Bende had done with the OUK and Theodore Orji administrations respectively.

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There is, however, a of school thought that is rather dismissive of any serious political significance being attached to the solidarity visits to Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, both at home and at the national level. Such persons argue that, prior to his prison ordeal, Senator Kalu had always been a socialite who loves to draw attention to himself and no one should lose sleep over his being visited by old friends and associates.

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Nevertheless, whichever direction the pendulum swings in terms of political punditry – including the opinion of those who see nothing to celebrate in the unfolding OUK saga – the fact, given his enduring antecedents and political trajectory, is that Senator Orji Uzor Kalu has never been a man to be taken for granted. Those who had taken him for granted in the past had often been jolted into a new consciousness wherein they had to reevaluate their assessment of him, and, in some cases become part of his alliances. It may therefore not be out of place to look beyond the optics of on-going solidarity visits to him. The year 2023 may likely raise the curtains on significant political theatres of war in which Senator Orji Uzor Kalu may play the decisive roles of the invincible protagonist whose actions or inaction determines the direction of the story.

 

Jonah Okafor Writes from Lagos, Nigeria


 

Note: This views expressed by The Pundit does not represent the views and opinions of AFNEWS 

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