Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, who represents Abia North in the National Assembly, has confirmed that he once traded in heavy weapons internationally, selling arms to buyers who could afford them before leaving the business at his parents’ request.
Kalu made the disclosure during an interview on Arise Television on Monday, in the course of a conversation about his long-standing ties to past and present South African leaders.
From Businessman to Arms Trader
The former Abia State governor said his commercial interests once stretched beyond Nigeria’s borders, and that his dealings included heavy weapons sold from one country to another.
When the interviewer asked him directly whether he had been an arms dealer, Kalu answered in the affirmative before explaining why he walked away.
“Yes, so I stopped because my…” he began, then said his parents had asked him to quit. “But my parents, my mother, my father came and said I must stop, and I stopped,” he said.
“I Was Selling Guns to Make Money”
Pressed on whether he had supplied weapons to people who intended to use them to kill others, Kalu rejected the suggestion, saying his motivation was profit.
“No, no, no, no, no, no. I was selling guns to make money, whether they blow up it’s not my business,” he said.
The interviewer then asked whether he had supplied weapons to the African National Congress during its struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Kalu denied selling exclusively to the ANC, describing his customer base as open to anyone able to pay.
“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.
Asked where the weapons came from, the senator declined to give details, saying only, “It’s only my business.”
Heavy Weapons, Not Small Arms
The conversation also touched on the proliferation of small arms in Nigeria, with the interviewer asking how Kalu’s account of his former trade related to the country’s security challenges.
Kalu maintained that his business did not involve small arms, describing the weapons as heavy arms traded between countries.
“No, no, these are heavy arms that were sold country to country,” he said.
When asked specifically whether he had sold weapons to Libya under its late leader, Muammar Gaddafi, Kalu replied, “To anybody that had money to buy.”
Asked whether that meant he had sold arms to Gaddafi, the senator said, “May his soul rest in peace. He was a good man. If you have money to buy, when I was selling, I would sell to you.”
Ties to South African Leaders
During the same interview, Kalu traced his relationships with successive South African presidents to his friendship with Nelson Mandela, the country’s former president.
He said Mandela introduced him to several South African leaders, including Thabo Mbeki and the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to Kalu, Mandela once explained that Mbeki’s father had contributed more to the anti-apartheid struggle than Ramaphosa’s father, a factor he said influenced the ANC’s decision to choose Mbeki over Ramaphosa as his running mate.
Kalu added that Mbeki later introduced him to former President Jacob Zuma, and that the relationships continued through subsequent administrations.
What the Admission Means
Kalu’s remarks amount to a public admission by a sitting senator that he once participated in the international arms trade, a business he says he left behind at his parents’ insistence.
His refusal to identify his suppliers, and his insistence that the weapons were heavy arms sold between countries rather than the small arms fuelling insecurity in Nigeria, leave key questions about the trade unanswered.
What he did confirm is that his customers were defined by one criterion: the ability to pay.
