Kalu returns to PPA, joins presidential race

Details: Category: Politics; Published on Tuesday, 14 September 2010 05:52; Written by Nigerian Tribune; Hits: 1331

FORMER governor of Abia State, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, has dumped his plan to dissolve the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and announced his intention to join the 2011 presidential race among his close allies.

Sources close to the PDP confirmed to the Nigerian Tribune that Kalu and others in the PPA had called off further discussions over the possibility of the two parties merging.

It was gathered that the former governor was hoping to fly the South-East flag in the 2011 race, though the zone had been unable to come out with a united voice in the 2011 election, so far.

Sources close to Kalu, on Monday, said the former governor, who contested the 2007 presidential election, had made up his mind on the presidential contest and had decided to revive the PPA, instead of dissolving it into the PDP.

It was gathered that the former governor had a rethink about his future in the PDP, following the immediate opposition raised about his planned return to the party by some leaders of the PDP in Abia State.

The state governor, Chief Theodore Orji, who is regarded as Kalu’s political son, had recently returned to the PDP, after he originally defected from the PPA to the All Progressives Peoples Alliance (APGA) and then to the PDP.

Kalu, in a telephone chat on Monday would neither confirm nor deny the story, but simply asked the Nigerian Tribune to give him some time to rest after his recent trip to the United States.

Sources, however, confirmed that Kalu had instructed the leadership of the PPA to withdraw from further negotiations with the PDP, so that the party could be rejuvenated.

The PPA won two governorship seat in the 2007 election with victories in Imo and Abia states, but the two governors had since defected to the PDP.