SSG’s Alleged Resignation, A Collision With Nemesis?
Friday (Orie) 12-12-2025.
Governments, sometimes, make the mistake of underrating the collective intelligence of those they govern. In most cases, if not in all, such attempts become ridiculous and counterproductive.
Few days ago, reports had it that the Secretary to Abia State Government, Professor Kenneth Kalu, tendered his ‘resignation letter’.
That ‘resignation’ was not new or strange, as far as the present Abia State Government is concerned. Appointees of the State Government had often resigned abruptly from the ‘Labour Party’ Government.
A Commissioner for Science & Technology, Mr Chima Oriaku, had purportedly ‘resigned’ in 2024 from the Government of Abia State. His resignation was rumoured to have stemmed from his expression of surprise that the sum of N2.6b was reportedly used to procure equipment for an ICT Hub in his Ministry while he knew nothing about the existence of such a hub or the processes that led to it.
Within the same period, the Commissioner for Agriculture, Professor Monica Ironkwe, had also resigned under circumstances that were said not to have given a clean bill of transparency to the State Government.
In the same 2024, the Commissioner for Health, Dr Ngozi Okoronkwo, earlier suspended by the State Government, had also ‘resigned’.
The first Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Kazie Uko, did not have the luck of ‘resignation’ but was disgracefully sacked.
So, the acclaimed ‘resignation’ of Professor Kenneth Kalu as Secretary to Abia State Government is not the first, second or, even, third instance of resignations from the present Abia State Labour Party, Zenith Labour Party or APGA Government.
What really makes the ‘resignation’ of Professor Kenneth Kalu new is the cheap lie associated with his resignation. It is unacceptably insulting for Abia State Government to claim that the Professor had to ‘resign due to family issues’.
What type of ‘family issue’ would compel a Secretary to a State Government resign his appointment?
If the Government had stated that the Man had resigned based on principles, probably becoming increasingly uncomfortable being compelled to sign documents that could put him in conflict with Anti-Graft Agencies, that could have been plausible. If the Government had resorted to using even non-existent health reasons for the so-called resignation, it could also have been considered tenable.
But for the State Government to have used ‘family issues’ as a reason for a Professor to ‘resign’ from a position as high and strategic as Secretary to Abia State Government is not only weak and cheap but a failed attempt to ridicule both Intellectualism and Professionalism.
For whatever reason(s) that gave room for Professor Kenneth Kalu to be shown the exit door, it will remain in the archives of Abia State Government that he was a strangely and unprecedented high Government Official that made himself a willing tool that supervised the inexplicable denial and exclusion of bureaucrats of Ukwa extraction from being appointed as Permanent-Secretaries in the Government of Abia State that he served. Nemesis will continue to trail him for being inequitably disposed to the Minority peoples of Ukwa.
Let it also not be forgotten that before the Nigerian Civil War of 1966-1970, the Minorities in defunct Eastern Nigeria complained bitterly of being marginalized by the Majority Igbo. The difference is today clear!
All Governments and people in any part of Abia State who take delight in marginalising Ukwa Peoples of Asa and Ndoki, should not forget that nemesis has a way of dealing with such Governments and people.
Sir Don Ubani is a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Abia State, and Publisher of Equity Global Reporters Ltd.
