Emmanuel Ugwu-Nwogo in Umuahia
Following alleged moves by the Senate Chief Whip, Orji Uzor Kalu, to return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a chieftain of the party in Abia State, Isaac Nkole, has urged the party leadership to keep the door permanently shut against the former state governor.
Kalu, who represents Abia North in the Senate, was a two-term governor of Abia State on the platform of PDP but left to form the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) which he used to contest for the presidency in 2007. His attempt to return to PDP was rebuffed before he eventually defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Speaking with journalists in Umuahia yesterday, Nkole said the PDP membership in the state was quite aware that the former governor “is in a desperate move to return to the PDP having discovered that his days in the APC are numbered.”
He said Kalu was in a dilemma having lost grips of APC structure in the state as the faction he belongs to lost out in the party’s congress.
Nkole claimed that the Senate Chief Whip “has been reaching out to key stakeholders in PDP both in the state and at the national levels, begging them to allow him return to the party.”
But the PDP chieftain insisted that “it is not in the interest of our party to open the door for a spoiler and political liability.
“I want to advise the leadership of PDP both in Abia State and national to be careful not to allow Kalu return to our great party because his return will destroy PDP.”
Nkole said that he was “raising the alarm because we heard that he is making contacts with the party big wigs begging for the door to be opened for him to come back.”
He stated that the dire consequences of not being in control of the state APC meant that his fate would be sealed in 2023, as his faction of APC is not recognised by the party’s national leadership.
“Knowing the implications for him and others in 2023, that’s why he’s making desperate efforts to return to PDP but we don’t need people like him to infect our party,” he said.
