Row over Kalu’s quest for deputy Senate president job

Fri, Apr 12, 2019 | By publisher


Politics

WITH less than two months to June 9, 2019, for the inauguration of 9th National Assembly, the battle for the headship of the next federal parliament is seriously gaining a momentum.

Orji Uzor Kalu, a former Abia State governor and Senator-elect for Abia North, has indicated interest to vie for the position of the deputy Senate president. Kalu, who secured the senatorial seat under the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, urged the leadership of the ruling party to zone the number two position in the Senate to the South East in the interest of equity and justice. He said he was already lobbying other senators-elect to enable him secure the position.

But Dozie Igbo, an Umuahia-based socio-cultural group, has vowed to stop the former Abia State governor from becoming the next deputy Senate president. Chukwuemeka Nnanta, the national coordinator of the group, claimed that Kalu is unfit to occupy the exalted office based on his antecedents. He pointed out that Kalu is still being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, at the Federal High Court in Lagos over alleged money laundering, official corruption and criminal diversion of N7.65billion when he ruled Abia State between 1999 and 2007.

Nnanta claimed that another reason why his group is opposed to Kalu’s quest for the exalted position is the fact that the deputy Senate office is meant for persons who are intellectually sound and not a person whose educational qualifications are questionable. He recalled that in 2013, the Abia State University, ABSU, Uturu, had revoked of the degree awarded Kalu by the institution while he was a sitting governor.

Nnanta explained that the university’s Senate cancelled the degree in line with the recommendation of which investigated allegations of breach of the extant academic regulations of the university, in the former governor’s matter. According to the ABSU, the former governor’s violation of the regulations on admission-by-transfer rendered his offer irregular ab initio. It was alleged that the transcript which Kalu sent to ABSU from the University of Maiduguri where he had dropped out did not bear the letterhead of that institution. Secondly, it was alleged that Kalu did not matriculate, in spite of the fact that this is mandatory for all fresh ABSU students. It was also alleged that the former governor spent only two semesters in the university instead of six (i.e. three academic years of study).

Nnanta added that during Kalu’s era as the Abia State governor he was alleged to have forced all political appointees in the state to swear oaths of allegiance to him at the dreaded Okija shrine. He claimed that all these factors make him unfit to be the next deputy Senate president.

– Apr. 12, 2019 @ 14:49 GMT |

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