Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s Blunt Speech On Channels Television Guides Against Substerfuge As A Political Strategy.
By Sir Don Ubani; KSC, JP.
Thursday (Afor) 19-02-2026.
In his Book, The Republic (Politeia), a classical Greek Philosopher, Plato, who was nurtured and groomed by the Grandmaster of Greek Philosophy and Teaching, Socrates, centered his advice against pretense and deceit on the idea that honesty is essential for the health of the soul, the pursuit of truth, and the creation of a just society. Plato viewed deceit not just as a social transgression but as a “poison” that corrupts characters and blinds individuals to reality.
A society could easily be destroyed through non-kinetic strategies, using pretense and deceit. In George Orwell’s Book, Animal Farm, published in 1945, the principal character, Napoleon, through his Arch Propagandist, Squealer, who was a replica of Adolf Hitler’s primary Propagandist and Minister of Enlightenment, Joseph Goebbels, subjected every other animal in the farm, except Pigs, to excruciating irrecoverable exploitation, using pretense and deceit.
In most cases, the easiest and best way to disarm and render vulnerable a very strong opponent is by pretense and deceit. In the philosophy of Igbo nomenclature, the name “Azuogu” means battle after a war is assumed to have come to an end. Some Warriors, Great Men in Battle, who proved invincible and, so, were not killed during wars had been killed after wars because they had trusted their erstwhile enemies who had even surrendered, pretended to have become friends but everything bothering on pretense and deceit.
Pretense and deceit are most common in Nigerian Politics. Politicians, a very high percentage of them, sell dummies to their political opponents. They do that using pretense and deceit in order, as stated by Plato, to blind them to reality.
Recently, the Governor of Abia State; 1999-2007, and Ranking Senator representing Abia-North Senatorial District in the 10th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, The Most Distinguished Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, bluntly stated on a Channels Television programme that any Governor that does not belong to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Political Party, All Progressives Congress, APC, but claims he will support the President in 2027 Presidential Election is only being pretentious and deceitful. There are no two ways about that!
Senator Orji Uzor Kalu is known for his bluntness. He has no time to romanticise realities. He says it the way things are. There was no other way the truth could have been said by the former Governor, especially when it is taken into consideration that the nucleus of membership of Labour Party in Abia State inexplicably bears pathological animosity and unbridled bitterness against President Tinubu and APC.
Except if the leadership of All Progressives Congress, APC, in Abia State allows unwarranted yet avoidable inter-personal conflicts of ego and selfishness to overwhelm the Party in the State, nothing, with the implosion the Party has experienced in the recent times, would make President Tinubu and APC not to secure, at least, 60% of total votes to be cast in 2027 elections in Abia State.
Sequel to the above realities, President Tinubu, being a very experienced political strategist, would not be expected to succumb to any person in Abia State or wherever who will try to pull the wool over his eyes.
In the same vein, some close allies of Mr President should avoid the gullibility of being used as willing tools to cajole or mislead Mr President into believing that an adversary has suddenly become a friend, instead of the vindictive foe he dangerously remains.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
