Nobody can stop me from returning to PDP – Kalu

A former Governor of Abia State, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, has dismissed the moves by some people, led by the Abia State Governor, Chief Theodore Orji, to block what they consider his anticipated return to the Peoples Democratic Party.
Kalu said inasmuch as his focus for now is not about party politics, no one or group can stop his association with any political party or group.
Kalu, who spoke with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation, said that his focus for now is the unity of the Igbo race with the sole objective of producing the next president of Nigeria using the platform of the 2015 general election.
He said that any political platform that provides that opportunity would be the vehicle to be used for the realization of the objective.
Kalu said that has been the reason he decided to remain apolitical in order to ensure that no Igbo, both in Nigeria and in the diaspora, feels left out of the move to produce the next president of the country.
He said the non partisan Igbo group, Njiko Igbo, of which he is the proem chairman, will galvanize all Igbos for the purpose.
Kalu said: “Since we lost Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, we have lost a lot of statesmen, and the former Vice President, Dr Alex Ekwueme, is getting old, we need to go round and tell our people to come up.
“Let (other) people stop doing caricature with the Igbos.
“That is our focus.
“That is where I am focusing on and that is where most of the people who genuinely like the Igbos are focusing on.
“I am not in any political party.
“I am not talking about partisan politics and I will support any platform on which the Igbo presidential candidate will emerge in the next election.”
On why Orji and others visited the national headquarters of the PDP to prevent any future move by his to return to the party where he was a founding member, Kalu said: “Well, it is fear for the bad things they have done in one way or the other.
“These are people who cannot win election anywhere, if there is free and fair election.
“They use the army to win election.
“I can tell you that all the people that went to (the PDP national headquarters in Abuja to block what they thought as my intention of going back to the party), almost all of them were in ANPP.
“Vin Ogbulafor was a member of ANPP. I even contested the governorship election against him. We later had a coalition government, he was made a minister. And he later joined the PDP. I was the one that took him into the party. He declared for the PDP and I was very happy to receive him as a member of the PDP.
“Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe contested election on the platform of the ANPP in 2003 and I took him back into the PDP.
“And Senator Nkechi Nwaogu was in the ANPP. I brought her back to the PDP.
“Senator Uche Chukwumerije had been a member of ANPP and APGA and this and that.
“And overall, the (present) governor of Abia, (Chief Theodore Orji) had never been in any political party in his life. The first political party he entered was PPA, on the platform of which he won election as governor and he then decamped to APGA and later to PDP.
“We are the founding fathers of PDP and at any giving day I want join any political party, those people cannot even stop me on what I want to do.
“They know that and that is what they are afraid of because they have ruined our state. Aba, Umuahia, Ohafia, Bende areas are ruined.
“The governor is not doing anything.
“I even called for his resignation.
“Last week, I asked him to resign because he is not doing any job for the people.”
Kalu added that the position of the National chairman of the PDP, Dr. Bamanga Tukur, to ensure broad based redonciliation, it would be more difficult to achieve the purpose for which Orji deployed the state’s resources with the movement of people in over 50 buses to the PDP national headquarters.
He said: “I am surprised that educated people like them should be doing that because when Bamanga Tukur took over as the national chairman of PDP, he said his leadership will be for reconciliation.
“And when the PDP leaders of Ekiti State opposed the return of (former Governor Ayo) Fayose to the party, Bamanga Tukur intervened.
“Because that is the cardinal point of the decision of the National Working Committee of the party and no individual, no state can flout that decision.”