Kalu’s Second Term Bid Threatened as Abia North APC Withdraws Support

Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia

Senator Orji Uzor Kalu’s quest to return to the Senate after the 2023 general election has come under serious threat from within his constituency.
A group within the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Abia North Senatorial District,the  announced withdrawal of its support for the Abia North Senator, and accused him of engaging in “high level anti-party activities.”
Addressing a press conference in Umuahia, the group under the aegis of Concerned Members of Abia North All Progressives Congress (CMANAPC) alleged that Kalu had floated the Action Peoples Party (APP) in Abia “in order to support his younger brother’s governorship ambition.”
Kalu’s younger brother, Mr. Mascot Uzor Kalu is the governorship flag bearer of Abia APP hence the belief in Abia North APC that the Senate Chief Whip is playing a double game. However, the younger Kalu, who had dumped APC for APP has denied receiving any backing from his elder brother.
But the Secretary of the APC Group, Mr. Kingsley Okorie, who announced their stance on Kalu’s second term bid, said that the former Abia State’s governor was no longer fit to run as the senatorial candidate of APC for Abia North.
According to him, Kalu was placing personal and family interest above party interest as well as the general interest of Abians, who are looking up to APC to liberate the state from bad governance.
Okorie stated that by giving support to his younger brother, Senator Kalu was deliberately undermining the governorship project of APC’s Candidate, Mr. Ikechi Emenike, hence the need to checkmate Kalu before it would be too late.
He declared that Abia North members or APC would cast their votes for all APC candidates with the exception of Senator Kalu.
“We hereby state our resolve to work against his second term bid. We will not allow him to be using our collective mandate to ruin our future,” Okorie said, vowing that the over 20,000 members of the group would work tirelessly to scuttle Kalu’s 2023 ambition.
He said that since APC has an undesirable senatorial candidate for Abia North, the party faithful in that zone would swing their votes to the Senatorial Candidate of Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Mao Ohuabunwa, who represented the zone between 2015 and 2019 when he lost to Kalu.