Re: I don’t interfere with PPA
However, Chief Kalu mentioned my name as a person in that interview and as the acting National Chairman of the party which has suspended him as BOT Chairman – a position which you still ascribed to him, I find it necessary to provide you with certain facts which you either shied away from asking him […]
However, Chief Kalu mentioned my name as a person in that interview and as the acting National Chairman of the party which has suspended him as BOT Chairman – a position which you still ascribed to him, I find it necessary to provide you with certain facts which you either shied away from asking him or you were not privy to them. You claimed for instance, that during the course of the interview he pointed to a file before him in which, he said, contained my letter of resignation. One expected you to inquire of him the basis of which he possessed my purported letter of resignation in his residence. When did he become the custodian of PPA documents? Has his Abuja residence become the national secretariat of PPA?
The truth of the matter is that I resigned my position as Deputy National Chairman, South, because I knew I could not suffer gladly dictatorship and unbridled interference in the party as the former National Chairman, Mr. Clement Ebri, did. Note that I resigned my position and not the membership of the party. I addressed my resignation to the National Secretary of the party who is the custodian of the National Working Committee (NWC) and National Executive Council (NEC) Secretariats. It is the responsibility of the NEC to accept or reject my resignation. Of course, his alleged possession of my letter of resignation shows clearly his misconception of the role of a BOT Chairman in party politics. But do we really have a BOT? If we do, when was it constituted? Who are the members? When did it ever meet?
Yes, I resigned my position as DNCS, I never left PPA. Our NEC in its wisdom met after the intervention of party elders and stakeholders, and prevailed on me to act as National Chairman on the exit of the erstwhile National Chairman, Mr Ebri. We are currently in that state where as acting National Chairman we are trying to give breadth once more to a body which dictatorial tendencies almost asphyxiated.
Your interview further gave the impression that Kalu is the financier of the PPA. You failed to inquire of him his level of financial assistance to the party. I challenge him to say when last he funded the party.
He claims he is an honest man. If he really is, let him say to you whether or not he asked the Deputy National Chairman, North, Alhaji Mustapha Habib Ahmed, to request Mr. Ebri to resign as National Chairman? Can he truly give any reason why he was desirous of Ebri’s resignation? My resignation as DNCS was a product of such indignation. He claims that because I had resigned, I had no locus to claim leadership of the party. He didn’t tell you that Mustapha who he now parades as acting National Chairman had two years ago not only resigned as then National Financial Secretary, but also his membership of PPA. That letter is now a public document, yet Kalu in his characteristic manner of a fox didn’t allude to it in his interview.
Kalu gave you the impression that he never benefitted personally from the Abia State government despite his tenure there as governor for eight years. Let him tell you who owns Zeerock Construction Company, the firm that constructed the state government building in Abuja Central Business District which he vaingloriously named after himself. Zeerock got jobs worth billions in both Abia and Imo States to construct dual carriage ways. The aim was to enable him patronize the party. Yet, he gave nothing to it. Is it not a notorious fact that the chairman of PPA in Abia State, Mr Emeka Ezeogo is his kinsman from Igbere? Before the current financial downturn, did local government councils in Abia not pay N5 million monthly to his mother’s NGO, Reality Organization? Were council elections in Abia not hurriedly conducted just before the then new governor was sworn-in with a view to imposing on him Kalu’s hatchet men? Is his junior brother, Mascott, not the Chief of Staff forced on Governor Theodore Orji? What about the police orderly, Isaac Okoro that he planted on Governor T.A. Orji?
These and many other questions beg for answers in your interview. As a parting shot, however, you may also wish to ask Kalu whether the PPA NWC still exists? If it does, why has he arrogated to himself its functions? Also enquire of him if it is the duties of the BOT Chairman to speak on the day-to-day running of a political party?
Orji Uzor Kalu is the problem with PPA. He believes that elected officials of the party are his staff. What a pity! Kalu, to say the least, is dictatorial, cunning and unfit to run PPA.
Lisa Olu Akerele is the acting National Chairman of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA)