Rt Hon Ben Kalu 

…'NO Man with So Many Opponents Survives a Struggle'


By Uche Nwosu

No man in his right senses would like to swim against the rampaging tide. No swimmer does that including the Olympians. No swimmer would out-swim the speed of a powerful rip current or tidal flow.

This is why it is necessary to advise Rt Hon Benjamin Okezie Kalu to jettison the temptation of running for the office of the governor of Abia State in 2027. He’s already up there at the federal level.

If the horse tradings and political maneuverings move on well, the dice may fall on him; and he could become the political Joker the players in Abuja may need to douse the flame in the Southeast as was the case in 2023.

I don’t want to get into the present politics of Who Made Who, When, How, What Led to the Making, it will be for another day: today, mine is to advise Rt Hon Benjamin Kalu not to run against Governor Alex Otti. 

Otti has done pretty well and running against him will be like committing political hara-kiri.

As one who has been around from the Military era, politics is all about watching before plunging in. Interestingly, feelers from the centre say Southeast is being considered Speakership. Therefore, if Ben goes back to the House of Representatives, no Representative from the zone would be more qualified than himself.

Then, from the 6th (or is it the 7th?) position to the 4th, with all the goodies attached to it, that’s assuming that the ‘Peter Obi/Rabiu Kwakwanso's Wave’ doesn’t rise above the present amnesia i.e. becomes a tidal with unbreakable anchorage. 

Chronic optimists in APC (All Progressives Congress) would dismiss this with a wave of hand. However, it’s a topic for another day.

But suffice it to say that if he runs the governorship race and loses, a decline would set in.

Meanwhile, whoever wins at the centre, whether Mr Peter Obi or President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would not offer him a worthwhile benefit as it would have been when he's occupying an elective office that will last for four years without sack. 

The influence he's wielding now would dwindle if not disappear.

Those urging on would find another paymaster to cheer. It will be a period of profound professional and personal suffering. The resultant effect would be: Irrelevance, Depression, Humiliation, Anxiety, Low Social Influence etc.

Feelers I have say he considered all these and approached the highest authorities in Abuja who advised that he should go back to the House. You agreed. Then zoned the governorship position to Abia Central; but some chronic cheerleaders that surround him shouted Faa, Faa, Faaawwhh!  

They made their way to the less important power brokers around the corridors of power and allegedly brokered a deal for Ben to make a return, the suicidal plunge. 

It is indeed an ‘Alice In Wonderland!’ Those people do not mean well. They are cheerleaders, tub-thumpers. They want to loot his pocket. The day the result would be announced, the compound would be empty.

The former National Chairman of PDP, Vincent Ogbulafor once spoke sadly about his experience in defeat. 

According to him, whenever he looked from the window during the campaigns, there was a beehive. But the day the result of 1999 governorship poll was announced, the house became a graveyard. ‘Where are they?’ He asked the only person he saw sitting solemnly in the premises, ‘they didn’t come today’, the man replied.

So, Ben don’t run!


Uche Nwosu is Shell BP Double Award Winner on Investigative Reporting & in Environmental Sanitation in the Year 2000.