1 week Ago By Anayo Ezugwu
Former Governor of Abia State, Orji Uzor Kalu, has said that his interest in the 2027 general election is to continue to serve the people of Abia North Senatorial District in the Senate. Speaking on the Channels Television programme, Politics Today, Kalu said he is not interested in running for the presidency unless President Bola Tinubu is not running for re-election. Kalu said: “First and foremost, I’m qualified to be the president and I have the competence, but in a constitutional democracy, a party that has a president that is running for his first term do not need a competition whether in America or anywhere.
“We ready have a candidate in our political party unless he is not running. “If he is not running and the party allows me to fly their flag, it is a privilege and it is not something that to say I would like but an opportunity given by the party “It is the party that gives it and Nigerian people support it. It is not about me.
“My interest in 2027 is to come back and be a lawmaker, sit in the Senate and work in the Senate.” On the alleged impeachment of Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Kalu said nobody was planning to impeach him. He said if there was any reason for the senators to impeach the Senate President, they would do it without fear or favour.
According to Kalu, the Senate is putting a lot of pressure on the executive to fix the challenges in Nigeria’s economy. He noted that all the countries in the world are facing economic challenges but regretted that the situation is bad in Nigeria because of the lack of an economic master plan. He said this is the reason President Tinubu is taking tough decisions to ensure that the country’s economy is repositioned for growth.
He said the President is working day and night to fix the economy. He said: “I know things are not friendly but this economic problem is going on everywhere in the world. “It is just that we haven’t had an economy where we could have said this is the system of our economy because the economy has no system since 1960 to date.
“If we have had an economy like Canada and America, we can say this is where we are going to follow. The pressure of COVID-19 has not gone. On the possibility of former Anambra State governor, Mr Peter Obi, running for the presidency in 2027, Kalu said he does not think Obi is a threat to established political parties in the country.
“He is not in my party. I’m not in his party and it is only when I’m in his party that I can speak on his chances.” Kalu maintained that the All Progressives Congress (APC) can win Abia State in 2027.
He said the party lost the state in 2023 because of an internal crisis. He said with peace returning to the party, they stand a better chance of winning the state in 2027..
