With former governor Uzor Kalu’s allies now in firm control of the Abia state Chapter of All Progressives Congress, APC, speculations are rife that the former governor is set to hand his younger brother, Mascot Kalu Abia gubernatorial ticket of the party while himself picks the party’s senatorial ticket to once again contest the position after suffering defeats in the past.
Mascot was installed Chief of Staff to former governor Theodore Orji by Kalu when the going was smooth between the two.Orji himself was Kalu’s right hand man who won election on the platform of the little known Peoples Progressive Alliance, PPA, a party founded by Kalu following his exit from the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, to succeed him (Kalu) in 2007.One spectacular feature of Orji’s victory was that he was elected while in EFCC’s cell in Lagos.He was arrested by the EFCC in trail of Abia’s finances allegedly looted by the then governor Kalu.
Mascot left the Orji government after the parting of ways between Orji and Kalu. However, sources close to the incumbent governor of the state, Okezie Ikpeazu say the governor and Abia PDP are not losing sleep over Kalu’s moves. They insist he now belongs to the past.
Describing him as a political prostitute, a chieftain of PDP in Umuahia, the state capital who pleaded anonymity told the The source that the former governor has lost relevance in Abia politics. “What political relevance and integrity does a man who deserted the house he built to become a tenant in another man’s house? Kalu established the PPA and abandoned it and went back to his vomit, PDP, and later sauntered back to the PPA for the purpose of Senatorial election which he lost. Again, he deserted the party for the APC just because he wants to remain relevant politically.Kalu is politically finished in Abia”, he said.
Meanwhile, a loyalist of the former governor’s has denied pocketing the Abia APC.It also described as untrue and malicious propaganda, speculations that he is plotting to make Mascot governor.
