Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Benjamin Kalu has distanced himself from 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 Tuesday 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.
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He said 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.
