Pressure is being put on the senate to declare the seat of the chief whip and former governor of Abia State, Mr. Orji Kalu vacant following his conviction and subsequent incarceration for embezzlement of N7.1 billion when he was governor from 1999-2007.
A chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state Mr. Charles Ike has begun the campaign with a charge on the senate leadership to declare the Abia North Senatorial seat vacant.
In a statement issued in Umuahia on Saturday, Ike argued that the people of Abia North Senatorial District were no longer comfortable for having no representation in the senate.
“I hereby call on the senate leadership to quickly declare Kalu’s seat vacant to enable the district to elect a capable replacement,” he said.
He said the senatorial zone had set machinery in motion for Kalu’s recall and that the process would soon commence in earnest.
Commenting on the recent defection of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) senatorial candidate for Abia North in the 2019 election Mr. Bourdex Ogba to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ike described it as “political indiscipline.”
He expressed disbelief that Ogba, who dumped APC for APGA, ahead of the 2019 elections, could “so quickly return to pick the same broom he said was not sweeping well.”
He alleged that Ogba’s return to APC was initiated to position himself for the senatorial ticket of the party in the event that the senate eventually called for a bye-election for Kalu’s replacement.
He alleged that Ogba had made four defections in recent time, having moved from PDP to APGA ahead of the 2015 general elections and later to APC and APGA before his latest return to the APC.
“His jumping from party to party smacks of political indiscipline and his desperation to go to Senate but you know that a rolling stone gathers no moss.
“Unfortunately, too, he lacks the political discipline to be trusted with any public office in Abia north.
“How can you trust a man whose only political antecedent is jumping from one party to another?”
Ike also took an exception to a comment credited to Ogba, when he visited the APC national secretariat where he was quoted to have asked the senate not to declare Kalu’s seat vacant.
Ike argued that the comment was at variance with the wishes of the people of Abia north who, he said, were earnestly yearning to have a replacement for Kalu.
