By Ismail Auwal
Prof Kingsley Moghalu, a former Presidential Candidate in the 2019 general elections and former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, is set to be finally conferred with a traditional title by the Igwe of Nnewi, in his home town in Anambra State.
The former Deputy Governor of the CBN, shared the news on his social media handles, expressing satisfaction over the “honor” he is to receive at “home”, saying nothing could be more gratifying, after a successful national and international technocratic career, in law, diplomacy, nation-building, finance, risk management, and academia.
After the 2019 adventure, Moghalu returned to his consultancy businesses and executive board roles abroad, before he was recently appointed a special envoy of the UNDP. According to an international US-based Magazine called ARBITERZ, Moghalu was picked as a global consultant to provide the risk management expertise to cushion the effect of Covid-19 on the African Continent for the United Nations Development Program.
Kingsley is equally speculated to have also played a low-key role in the Biden/Harris US Presidential Campaign alongside his friend, a member of the US Congress, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner. Some unconfirmed stories indicated that the former UN official is one of the underground team working for the Biden transition.
This speculation was strengthened by the selection of an old colleague in the UN and friend, Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield, to head the Department of States Transition Committee. Moghalu was one of the first persons to announce her nomination and congratulated her on social media before she subsequently emerged as Biden’s Nominee for US Permanent Representative of the United Nations.
Since his return to Nigeria from the Pandemic break in the US (where his family is) last week, Kingsley has embarked on a strategic political “consultation”, starting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Sunday, 13th December at his Presidential Library in Abeokuta, Ogun State.
On Tuesday, Moghalu released his pictures with the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, one of the few most renowned, respected elder statesmen in Nigeria
This is coming at a time when pressure continues to mount on Nigeria’s political class to give a chance, in the interest of equity, for Igbos from the Southeast to produce the next President of Nigeria for the first time in over 50 years.
Although Moghalu has consistently distanced himself from being an ethnic candidate, he is one of those being considered as qualified to fit into that consensus (if any) by many observers based on his experience in Macroeconomic management, nation-building, and public service.