Senator Orji Kalu has revealed that he once traded heavy weapons internationally, stating that he sold arms to buyers who could afford them before giving up the business at his parents’ insistence.
Kalu shared this information on Monday during an interview on Arise Television, where he was talking about his long-standing ties with both former and current South African leaders.
The former governor of Abia State said his business interests had previously reached beyond Nigeria, noting that he dealt in heavy weapons that were sold from one country to another.
When the interviewer asked him whether he was an arms dealer, Kalu answered, “Yes, so I stopped because my…”
He explained that he gave up the business because his parents asked him to quit.
“But my parents, my mother, and my father came and said I must stop, and I stopped,” he said.
When asked if he sold weapons to individuals who planned to use them to kill others, Kalu rejected the notion, maintaining that his goal was simply to make money.
“No, no, no, no, no, no. I was selling guns to make money; whether they blow up is not my business,” he said.
The interviewer then asked whether he had supplied weapons to the African National Congress during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.
Kalu denied selling only to the ANC, stating that his customers included anyone willing to pay for the weapons.
“No, I was selling to anybody who wants to buy. If you have the money, you want to buy in D.R.C., I sell to you; you want to buy in Namibia, you want to buy…” he said.
When questioned about where he obtained the weapons, the senator refused to reveal the details, replying, “It’s only my business.”
The interviewer also expressed concerns about the spread of small arms in Nigeria, asking how Kalu’s account of his former business related to the country’s security challenges.
Kalu, however, insisted that the weapons he traded were not small arms, clarifying that they were heavy weapons exchanged between countries.
“No, no, these are heavy arms that were sold country to country,” he said.
When asked directly whether he had sold weapons to Libya under its late leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Kalu replied, “To anybody that had money to buy.”
When the interviewer pointed out that this meant he had sold arms to Gaddafi, the senator answered, “May his soul rest in peace. He was a good man. If you had money to buy, then while I was selling, I would sell to you.”
In the course of the interview, Kalu also discussed his ties to successive South African leaders, tracing them back to his friendship with the country’s former president, Nelson Mandela.
He explained that Mandela had introduced him to several South African presidents, among them Thabo Mbeki and the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
As Kalu told it, Mandela once explained that Mbeki’s father had done more for the anti-apartheid struggle than Ramaphosa’s father, something he said shaped the African National Congress’s choice of Mbeki over Ramaphosa as his running mate.
Kalu added that Mbeki later introduced him to former President Jacob Zuma and that these relationships carried on through successive administrations.
