Former Abia State Governor and Senator representing Abia North, Orji Uzor Kalu, has disclosed that he previously operated as an arms dealer, selling weapons to anyone who had the money to buy them.
Kalu made the revelation during an interview with Charles Aniagolu on Arise News Prime Time, titled “Orji Kalu: Business, Politics and Ambition.”
During the interview, Aniagolu asked Kalu directly whether he had been an arms dealer. The senator responded in the affirmative.
When asked whether he sold weapons to people who used them to kill others, Kalu replied that his interest was making money, adding that whether blood was shed was not his business.
He further disclosed that he eventually abandoned the business after his parents intervened and demanded that he stop.
“My parents, my mother, my father came and say I must stop, and I stopped,” he said.
Asked whether he supplied weapons to the African National Congress (ANC) during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, Kalu denied selling specifically to the organisation, insisting that he sold to anyone who could afford his products.
“I was selling to anybody who wants to buy, right. Eh, you have the money,” he stated.
The conversation also touched on the proliferation of small arms in Africa and whether he had supplied weapons to Libya.
Kalu maintained that he sold to anyone with the financial capacity to purchase them. When asked specifically about former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, he described him as a good man but did not clearly confirm whether he had personally supplied him with weapons.
The revelation has raised questions about the senator’s past business activities, the international arms trade and the consequences of supplying weapons without regard to their eventual use.
What do you make of Kalu’s revelation that he sold weapons to anyone who could afford them, regardless of how they might be used?