Uchechukwu Okoroafor,Abuja
Is it Hon. Benjamin Kalu, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, who stopped Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha from returning to the House of Representatives and becoming part of the 10th National Assembly? Is it Hon. Benjamin Kalu who sponsored the Labour Party House of Representatives candidate, Amobi Ogah, who handed her a colossal defeat at the election? Is it Hon. Benjamin Kalu who caused her to lose at the Election Petition Tribunal? Is it Hon. Benjamin Kalu who was responsible for the allocation of ministerial portfolios and allocated her junior ministerial position, which perhaps she is not happy about? Did Hon. Benjamin Kalu usurp the Deputy Speakership of the 10th from her when she was not even a member of that parliament because she failed in her bid to return to the National Assembly? So why is this woman so worked up over the emergence of Kalu as the Deputy Speaker and has been wailing from pillar to post, lamenting over imaginary wrongs that Kalu supposedly did to her? Her nuisance was so nauseating that the Deputy Speaker had to react “before the hand of the monkey turns to the hand of man.”
Grow your business with us
Recently, the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu, distanced himself from the alleged campaign of calumny against the Minister of State, Labour and Employment, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, urging the minister to focus on the immediate demands of her office and stop raising false alarms through proxies.
Kalu was reacting to a press conference by a support group of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), the Progressive League of Youth Voters, which had accused him of working against the minister and asked President Bola Tinubu as well as the APC national chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje to call him to order.
At a news conference in Abuja, the group, led by Ambassador Usman Shuaibu, specifically threatened to occupy the National Assembly if Hon. Kalu continued to politically antagonize the minister.
However, Chief Press Secretary to the deputy Speaker, Levinus Nwabughiogu, said the press conference was misdirected or, at best, done without the consent of the minister, who obviously would be embarrassed by it because it has the imprints of a people on a mission to infamy and perfidy.
He said that, while one is seriously affronted by the launch of insolence and impudence against the person and the Office of the Deputy Speaker by this group, it is also very pertinent to state that it may be lost on them that Kalu shares a healthy and robust relationship with Onyejeocha both as a sister and worthy partner in the government of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
“But the fact that Onyejeocha has not yet disassociated herself from the press conference leaves a huge worry and casts aspersions on her person as to what manner of a minister would be creating an impression of someone deliberately courting trouble where none exists.
“From what is conceivably right and true Onyejeocha is a sister whose integrity would be brutally assaulted by a group that chooses to drag her name to raising false accusations.
“Though she was a fellow congress member in the 9th National Assembly with Kalu, for starters, except on issues of collective patrimony in Abia State or of national significance in APC or the National Assembly, the Deputy Speaker, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu does not share a direct political affinity with Onyejeocha so as to be engaged in a feudal struggle.
“Both officials hail from different political constituencies and so, there is no basis for a political war at all. Kalu’s passion is to engender a new paradigm shift in political leadership especially as it affects the youth of this country.
“Besides, at the moment, Onyejeocha as a minister functions under the executive arm of government while Kalu is preoccupied with legislative duties at the National Assembly.
“With these obvious distinctions, it then beats an imagination that Kalu from Bende Federal Constituency, unusually preoccupied with a plethora of national engagements would effortlessly pick up a quarrel with his sister from Isukwuato/Umunneochi federal constituency.
“On this, it may be pertinent to question this false alarm, coming barely one week after Kalu secured victory at the Court of Appeal to affirm his electoral mandate after the Labour Party (LP) and the Action Alliance (AA) fought tirelessly to upturn the mandate of the people. Is there something Onyejeocha is not telling the public about the legal battle even when it was obvious that the AA candidate, Ifeanyi Igbokwe cried impersonation in the matter? Did the judgement which has put an end to the legal voyage and ultimately upheld the election of the deputy speaker upset her? Was she up to something clandestine? We need answers.
“The office of the Minister is supposedly established to help the government to create jobs for our teeming unemployed youths. Rather than creating jobs through some political subterfuge and encouraging them to occupy the national assembly because Kalu was not sacked by the Court, a new paradigm shift should be born to make the youths succeed in matters of decency. Leaders are a shining example for the youths and therefore must not be seen to be fighting themselves when they should be partners in the task of building the nation. Besides, the future of this great nation which are the youths must not be dragged into a useless, egocentric battle”, he added.
The Deputy Speaker’s media aide raised some fundamental questions that Onyejeocha needs to clarify and exonerate herself. Is she remotely connected with those that want to deny Ndigbo the Deputy Speakership of the House of Representatives by instituting meaningless petitions against Hon Kalu’s election? Is she the unseen hand behind the legal distraction purportedly instituted by the AA candidate, Ifeanyi Igbokwe who denied ever instituting any suit against Kalu? Is it not curious that despite the fact the Igbokwe called on the security agents including the Department of State Services (DSS) to identify the impostor that filed unsolicited suit on his behalf, nothing was heard from these usually active security agencies, which is a pointer that someone in government may be behind it. A search through Google shows that Onyejeocha has never congratulated Kalu since his emergence as Deputy Speaker, not to talk of congratulating him on his recent victory at the Appeal Court. By not congratulating Kalu as Deputy Speaker, Onyejeocha has thus presented herself as enemy of Ndigbo who fought to get the Deputy Speakership position after the failed bid by the region to clinch the Presidency.
Having failed woefully in her agenda to distract the Deputy Speaker and since no sensible person would believe her tale of Kalu undermining her, it is advisable that she concentrates on her junior ministerial role of thinking out of the box to generate jobs for our youths and ensuring industrial harmony to guarantee the success of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. With unemployment rate of over 33 per cent and a workforce seeking living wage to guarantee industrial peace, Onyejeocha if she takes her job seriously, has enough in her plate to deal with rather than insulting the intelligence of Nigerians with her spurious and unfounded allegations against the Deputy Speaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.