The Senate Minority Leader, Enyinnaya Abaribe, has revealed how he was meant to swear oath of allegiance when he served as deputy governor to Orji Uzor Kalu.
Abaribe served as deputy governor to Kalu in Abia State from May 29, 1999 till March 2003.
He later resigned from the position and defected to the defunct All Nigerian People’s Party.
The Senate Majority Leader revealed in a new book, “Made in Aba” which was launched in Abuja on Monday, how he was led to a shrine to swear an oath of loyalty 24 hours before inauguration as deputy governor.
According to Abaribe, then Aba North Local Government Area Chairman, one Chief Duru, and Kalu’s younger brother, Uzor, were the ones who took him to a shrine at School Road, Aba, in Abia State, to swear the oath.
“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.
“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!
“At the end of the day, the participant not only got to fear the principal, but also these individuals who had privileges to convince such principal’s of the measures they had taken to secure their quarries in a zombie-like state.
“Well, I was not about to subject myself to any authority beyond the law. I was not about to look to any unidentified office beyond that of the governor, whom I had given my word to assist in delivering good governance,” Abaribe said in the book.