A former Governor of Abia State, Orji Kalu, has said his return to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) cannot be blocked by anyone whenever he is ready to do so.
Kalu, apparently referring to the Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji, said no amount of blackmail can deter him from going back to the PDP, a party he said he co-founded.
The politician who was speaking with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday said that his desire is to see an Igbo president of Nigeria come 2015.
He said that any political platform that provides that opportunity would be used for the actualization of the aim. He added that the non-partisan Igbo group, Njiko Igbo, of which he is the chairman, will mobilise all citizens of Igbo extraction to ensure the region leads the country. Kalu said: “Since we lost Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, we have lost a lot of statesmen, and the former Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, is getting old, we need to go round and tell our people to come up.
“Let (other) people stop doing caricature with the Igbos. That is our focus. That is where I am focusing on and that is where most of the people who genuinely like the Igbos are focusing on.
“I am not in any political party. I am not talking about partisan politics and I will support any platform on which the Igbo presidential candidate will emerge in the next election.”
When questioned on speculations that his successor , Governor Orji was trying to block his return to the party, Kalu said: “Well, it is fear for the bad things they have done in one way or the other. These are people who cannot win election anywhere, if there is free and fair election. They use the army to win election.
“I can tell you that all the people that went to (the PDP national headquarters in Abuja to block what they thought as my intention of going back to the party), almost all of them were in ANPP.
“Vincent Ogbulafor was a member of ANPP. I even contested the governorship election against him. We later had a coalition government and he was made minister. And he later joined the PDP. I was the one that took him into the party. He declared for the PDP and I was very happy to receive him as a member of the PDP.
“Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe contested election on the platform of the ANPP in 2003 and I took him back into the PDP. Senator Nkechi Nwaogu was in the ANPP. I brought her back to the PDP. Senator Uche Chukwumerije had been a member of ANPP and APGA and this and that.
“And overall, the (present) governor of Abia, (Chief Theodore Orji) had never been in any political party in his life. The first political party he entered was PPA, on the platform of which he won election as governor and he then decamped to APGA and later to PDP.
“We are the founding fathers of PDP and at any giving day I want join any political party, those people cannot even stop me on what I want to do. They know that and that is what they are afraid of because they have ruined our state. Aba, Umuahia, Ohafia, Bende areas are ruined.”
“The governor is not doing anything. I even called for his resignation. Last week, I asked him to resign because he is not doing any job for the people.”
Speaking further on the movement of people in over 50 buses to the PDP national headquarters to protest his impending return, the Peoples Progressive Alliance leader said: “I am surprised that educated people like them should be doing that because when Bamanga Tukur took over as the national chairman of PDP, he said his leadership will be for reconciliation.”
“And when the PDP leaders of Ekiti State opposed the return of (former Governor Ayo) Fayose to the party, Bamanga Tukur intervened. Because that is the cardinal point of the decision of the National Working Committee of the party and no individual, no state can flout that decision.”
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