Abia Politicians, Others Hail Kalu’s APC Move

Political heavyweights, including Abia State chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sam Nkire, National Organising Secretary, Senator Osita Izunaso, and former governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, have praised former governor of Abia State, Dr Orji Uzor Kalu’s decision to join the party.

Speaking during a ceremony to welcome the business mogul into the party, at the national secretariat in Abuja, Nkire assured Kalu that his entry will bring good tidings and awaken the party hitherto sleeping in Abia and the South-East.

“I don’t know any politician in Nigeria that has not heard about Orji Uzor Kalu. When I joined APC in 2013, Dr Chris Ngige had been coming to persuade us to lead the PPA into a merger. Although we did not finally agree to the merger, I have been in the business of dragging Kalu to the APC after joining the party.

“Having known him and his capabilities as a political heavyweight, I promise the leadership of this party that the sleeping APC in Abia State will wake up from now. I don’t also have any iota of doubt that the sleeping APC in the South-East will also wake up from now.

“In 2019, if the party had polled 300,000 votes during last year’s Presidential election, I can assure you that it is going to be more than three million votes with him now in the party. He is a man who cannot pass through Onitsha or Aba markets without closing the markets because of people that would fall on each other to see him. He is a grassroots man, and though I don’t want to say that he is a Donald Trump, they, however, have little similarity,” he noted.

Also narrating efforts he made to convince Kalu to join APC, Oyinlola expressed happiness that the party has caught another ‘big masquerade’, and added that he was a satisfied man.

“When his mum led the rest of the family to join the progressives party, I remember asking her, ‘what about Kalu?’ She told me efforts she made to convince Kalu but mandated me to ensure he joins them. Since then, I have been calling and dragging him because he is a lone ranger….”, Oyinlola said.

In his remarks, Izunaso, said: “When the news of your decision to join the party filtered into the air, the national leadership of the party made it compulsory you must be part of history. Those in Kano, Lagos and many other far places boarded flights to come to Abuja because of the importance of this occasion. The National Working Committee, including the youth leader, will inform the youth that we have caught a big fish. I won’t deny that I was part of the plans to bring Kalu to APC,” he noted.