Orji Kalu Fights For His Political Life As Uncertainty Shadows Abia North Senatorial Legal Battle

Suleiman Anyalewechi, Aba

As political actors and electorate from Abia North senatorial district of Abia state await with bated breath the verdict of the Court of Appeal on the legal tussle resulting from the February 25, National Assembly elections, indications have emerged that the otherwise bourgeoning political career of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu may be headed for an inextricable extinction.  

NewsCritic online reports that the duo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief MAO Ohuabunwa and Nnamdi Iro Orji of the Labour Party, LP, had in the wake of an earlier ruling by the Justice Paul Sampson Gang led National Assembly Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Umuahia, dismissing their petitions against the polls which threw up Sen Orji Kalu, a former Gov of Abia State as winner of the Abia North Senatorial contest, approached the appellate court seeking a reversal.

With the Appeal Court set to deliver its ruling soonest, a pal of uncertainty appears to be hovering over the political future of the strong man of Abia North politics, as feelers sign- post supplementary elections in disputed areas as the best bargain that is most likely to come the way of the former Governor.

Orji’s political rivals in their appeal are contending that the tribunal erred in law by affirming the return of Sen Kalu without a fair consideration of the substance of their petitions 

The duo had argued that while elections were still ongoing in most areas notably the densely populated Arochukwu and Ohafia local councils, the electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Sen Kalu the winner with a less than 3000 votes margin, even as the total number of registered and accredited voters in the affected local councils far outnumbered the margin of votes.

Authoritative sources have revealed that in the most likely event that a supplementary election is ordered, Sen Kalu may as well kiss bye to his senatorial seat, as a coalition of forces both from the state and National levels are strongly believed to have amassed enough arsenal to consign him into political dust bin.

NewsCritic online findings also have revealed that the former Senate Chief Whip’s botched ambition of occupying the nation’s number three seat against the expressed wishes of both his ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and the country’s seat of power may have inflicted a deep injury on his political future.

His open romance and identification with the senate presidency ambition of former Gov Abdulaziz Yari, laced with his unstable position in the count down to the APC presidential convention are said not to be going unnoticed by the powers that be.

Same alliance with Yari NewsCritic online has authoritatively gathered equally bred as much political foes on the home front, with not a few vouching that the Deputy Speakership ambition of Hon. Ben Kalu, his erstwhile protege was almost truncated, but for the intervention of President Tinubu’s Chief of Staff and former Speaker of the Green Chamber of the National Assembly Femi Gbajabiamila.

A possible Supplementary election, our sources have revealed will see the offended forces morphing against the former Abia State Gov, even if it means sacrificing the wider interest of APC.

“The fact is that he (Orji Kalu) is aware that he has played the wrong politics, beginning from the build up to the party’s presidential convention.

It is not compelling that all party members must be in the same camp, no. The problem here is that at a time when all well-meaning political actors both from the North and South were rooting for a Southern president, Kalu was undermining the agitation not in favour of his region the South East, but the North.

When almost everybody in the system was of the belief that the Senate president should come from the same South as the President, Kalu was rooting for a Northerner, not for his region, all in a bid to become the Deputy Senate president.

His selfish interest almost truncated the whole of APC’s in- house arrangements. Well, we wish him well. But in the event his election is not affirmed, I don’t see him receiving a helping hand from the party. It will not be trite to benefit from the same system that you seek to destroy,” one source stated.

Already, the camp of the former Abia AState Gov, has sufficiently been alerted and unsettled by the recent revelation by the ousted former Senator Elisha Abbo from Adamawa State, that the Abia North senator, alongside three others have been marked for removal from the red chamber of the National Assembly.

Although, the embattled former senator representing Adamawa North have since apologized to the alleged key suspect in the plot the Senate President Godswill Akpapio, as well as withdrawing the allegation, informed and impeccable sources insist that danger still looms on the horizon.

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