By NewsCritic Reporters
Early hope of the fractionalized Abia State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, navigating itself out of the troubled waters it is swimming in appears to be ebbing fast NewsCritic online can authoritatively reveal.
This followed the surprise exclusion of the former governor of Abia State and Senator representing Abia North senatorial district in the National Assembly from the reviewed list of the APC Presidential Campaign Council PCC.
It would be recalled that the APC had on Wednesday made public the amended list of those expected to pilot the campaign of its presidential hopeful, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu with the name of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu conspicuously missing. The Senate Chief Whip had made the first least released a few weeks ago as the coordinator of the APC presidential campaign in Abia State.
NewsCritic online reliably gathered from impeccable party sources that the last minutes exclusion of Orji Kalu’s name from the list was the handiwork of the duo of Gov Hope Uzodinma of Imo State and High Chief Ikechi Emenike, the APC gubernatorial flagbearer in Abia State.
They were said to have made strong and persistent plea to both the national headquarters of the party and Asiwaju Tinubu himself to remove the Abia North Senator from the list, citing mainly what sources described as serious anti-party activities on the part of Kalu.
“Look the whole thing started before the party’s national convention and primaries. Ikechi Emenike for whatever reason attempted to deny Orji Kalu a return ticket to the Senate. It took the intervention of the national body for that to change. At the convention proper, Kalu based on his calculations preferred the Senate president for the party’s presidential ticket the Igbo’s having been schemed out of the race.
“This did not go down well with Gov Uzodinma and Emenike, who pitched their tent with Tinubu at the last minute. And even months after the primaries, these people have refused to see Kalu as a partner in the whole project. They have been inundating the party national hierarchy and Tinubu himself with some tales such as that Kalu is behind the formation and sponsorship of Action Peoples Party, APP, that and that he (Kalu) is not interested in campaigning for the other candidates of the party except for his own senatorial seat, and so many other allegations”, one of the sources told this newspaper.
It has also been gathered that Gov Uzodinma who has come to see himself as being in a direct and open competition for the control of the APC in the South East with Orji Kalu has since after the Abuja convention been calling the shots and dictating the party’s affairs in Abia state, a development that many say has not helped the unity of the party.
He is believed to be working in concert with Emenike to push the former governor Kalu into political oblivion and is said to be ever ready to latch on any available opportunity to achieve that.
With the current unfolding of event many party followers fear that the party is much more likely to plunge deeper into trouble. “Mark my word Kalu is going to fight back and when that begins to happen, I can assure you that the APC in the state will sink the more. Already, the party is currently having more than its fair share of crisis and I know the situation is going to get worse very soon”, a source told NewsCritic online.
NewsCritic online reports that Senator Kalu, who is the Senate Chief whip was removed as the APC presidential campaign coordinator for Abia state, according to the reviewed list of the PCC released by the party late Wednesday.
He was listed as the coordinator for Abia alongside the party’s governorship candidate in the state, Ikechi Emenike.
However, according to the new list, Chief Emenike is now the sole coordinator of the party’s campaign in the state.
