Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has revealed how he was made to swear to an Oath of Loyalty 24 hours before inauguration as deputy governor in 1999 by his former principal, now Sen. Orji Uzor Kalu.
Recall that Sen. Abaribe was deputy governor to Sen. Orji Kalu from May 29, 1999 till March 2003, before he resigned and defected to the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP).
Sen. Abaribe stated this in his new book, ‘Made in Aba’ which was launched, in Abuja, on Monday.
He explained that the former Aba North Local Government Area chairman, one Chief Duru, and Kalu’s younger brother, Uzor, took him to “a so-called prophet” on School Road, Aba, in Abia State.
He said, “On the matter of loyalty by ordeal, whereby people were made to swear allegiance on all sorts of objects, my experience was that some people around Kalu took it upon themselves to engage in invidious activities, purporting to be directed by him.
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“In my case, on the night before swearing into office, the then Aba North Local Government Chairman informed me that Kalu’s people were not comfortable with me as I had not sworn to anything.
“Here I was, being lectured, nay, more like being intimidated with verses from the Bible, hinging the act on notion like ‘you people will be my people…’ and the like. Was that Bible not what I stood on to insist I was a Christian?
“What big secret mission were we embarking on that required that much effort to ensure loyalty? Loyalty to what? Were we not to swear loyalty to the people rather than to the person of the Governor? Yes, I was that much of a greenhorn in politics!”
