Lesson Orji Uzor Kalu failed to learn from Tinubu “It’s good that he now knows better,” Says Kanu’s Associate

Sir: I didn’t know whether to sympathise with or mock Orji Uzor Kalu (OUK) after watching a video in which he barely held back tears on the floor of the Senate.
I will not deny that I have for years had a kind of emotional attachment to Kalu.

Like all humans, he has his shortcomings and most are mirrored via the shenanigans and greed that hallmark our politics.

Kalu, no doubt, is one of the promoters and beneficiaries of the hollow politics that catapults his likes to positions of authority through the help of an undiscerning electorate.

Some years back, Kalu invited top Igbo journalists in Lagos to his Victoria Island residence. Yours sincerely was among the invitees. There, he explained to them why he founded the Progressives Peoples Alliance (PPA).

He had said: “I had an interaction with Tinubu one day and the focus was on how we could make the South play politics like the North.

“During the discussion, Tinubu said he was ready to form a political party to stand for the interest of the Southwest. He advised me to get like minds and also form a party that can stand for the Southeast.

“He went on to add that since politics is like a chess game, we in the South must have our Queens.

“With your Queen in a major tribe, you will be courted by any zone that wants to be in power. You know that there is hardly any zone that can win our presidential election by standing alone. When you are being courted, you will be in a position to negotiate.

“Go and hold your zone through a political party that can have the masses behind it while I work towards holding my zone.

“That is how PPA and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) came into being then.”

In less than four years, Kalu handed over the PPA to the PDP as a gluttonous bride would run into the open alms of an inconsiderate groom. He simply buried the PPA and went on a self-serving romance with the PDP and now the APC.

After being shown that his contributions to both parties are not worth an ounce, nationally, he started shedding crocodile tears and lamenting that Nigeria “isn’t fair”. It’s good that he now knows better.

OUK simply did not learn from Tinubu who started with Alliance for Democracy (AD), Action Congress (AC) and then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which teamed up with Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Onu’s All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) to form APC.

It is Tinubu’s consistency and perseverance in opposition politics that eventually landed him in Aso Rock Villa through APC.