Reps’ Deputy Speaker Won’t Be Distracted By Blackmail – South East Group

In the wake of social media campaigns against the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Benjamin Okezie Kalu, on the alleged overlap in his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate and his Law School result, the South East Progressive Forum has called on Nigerian security agencies to fish out those sponsoring the blackmail.

The forum, in a statement on Monday evening, warned those being sponsored to push negative narratives against Kalu on social media, declaring that “no amount of blackmail will deter the deputy speaker from carrying out his good work for the people of Bende Federal Constituency and Nigerians at large.”

Kalu emerged as the deputy speaker of the 10th House of Representatives in June 2023, gaining the support of almost all 359 other members, making him the 6th citizen and the highest-ranking political figure from the South East, Nigeria, under the present dispensation.

But his reign has not been without media attacks and criticisms from his own Abia State, where a member of the Labour Party, Alex Otti, is the executive governor.

The latest is the narrative that Kalu’s academic record allegedly overlaps with his NYSC service year and his attendance at the Nigerian Law School, Enugu Campus.

A group known as Abia Patriots has been at the forefront of the social media fireworks, stamping that one Mr John Aipkopko Martins has reportedly sent a petition to that effect to the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee, to investigate what they described as “fraudulent enrolment” on the Roll of Legal Practitioners at the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

While waving it off through a statement on Monday, the spokesperson of the South East Progressive Forum, Chief Ihuoma Okoronkwo, accused the petitioner and the group of being sponsored to “dent their own brother”.

The forum raised serious concerns about Abia Patriots’ activities since 2024, attributing them to the dictates of the state government.

“Everybody in Abia knows that the group, which was not registered anywhere before now, was conscripted to attack the deputy speaker in 2024. If you Google Abia Patriots, the only things you would see about them are those attacks on Benjamin Kalu. Curiously, too, the same group sees nothing wrong in whatever Alex Otti does as governor; rather, they are on social media praising him every day.

“With such dubious antecedents, you need no prophets to tell you who the paymaster is. Those with sound minds in Abia and outside observers know they are agents of the state government.

“But, we are assuring them that no amount of blackmail or social media attacks will deter the deputy speaker from performing his lawful duties. Nobody even takes them seriously. Aside from the social media and a few local media in Abia, which promote their mischievous activities against Kalu, you would never see any respected medium publish it,” the statement said.

The forum urged Kalu not to allow anyone or group of persons from his home state to discourage him from executing the good plans he has for the entire Igbo and Nigerians.

Okoronkwo said, “What the jobless miscreants and their paymaster don’t know is that, Kalu is not only representing Bende Federal Constituency, but he has the entire 360 federal constituencies at hand, as a presiding officer of the House of Representatives, this local politics would only provoke him to look elsewhere in the other constituencies, which the people of Abia would suffer it.”

On the allegation of overlap between his NYSC and Law School certificates, the forum called for calm, noting that the Legal Disciplinary Committee would attend to the petition and brief Nigerians in due time, stressing that the committee is a professional body that will not be compromised by any governor.