2023 Polls: It’s Time You Return Home – PDP Tells Orji Kalu
BY SEGUN ADEBAYO – Determined to effectively recalibrate its structures ahead of the 2023 general election, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the Senate Chief Whip and former Governor of Abia State, Senator Orji Kalu to return to the party.
According to the PDP National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, the door is open for Senator Kalu to return home as the Party is currently on a serious membership drive to bring back all those that left due to some challenges in the past.
Anyanwu, who led a PDP delegation to visit the lawmaker in his Abuja residence on Thursday, said; “This is a place he started, so you have to leave where you are and go back to where you started.”
Speaking after the closed-door meeting with Kalu that lasted about an hour, Anyanwu said their discussions focused on issues of profitable benefits to the country and Nigerians.
According to him; “We came to visit a friend, a leader in the South-East and one of our own and to acquaint him with the developments in our party.
“And to let him know the reason why he should move over to our party. We had a good discussion and this is just the beginning.”
The PDP National Secretary further stated that visiting the former Abia State governor was part of efforts by the Party to woo and bring their members back towards repositioning the party for the task of making Nigeria great again through good governance after the 2023 general elections.
“We are talking about bringing people back to the party because the more the merrier”, Anyanwu said, adding that there was absolutely nothing wrong in asking people who left the party to return home and be part of the rebuilding process.
The visit and appeal by Nigeria’s main opposition party to the Senate Chief Whip are coming just two weeks after the National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen. Bola Tinubu also visited him in Abuja.
Yet to openly declare interest in the 2023 presidential election, but posters of the former governor, who is the publisher of both The Sun and New Telegraph Newspapers, have flooded major cities in the country announcing his presidential ambition.
Considered a passionate supporter of President Muhammadu Buhari and a chieftain of the ruling APC, Senator Kalu dumped the PDP in November 2016. His political sojourn saw him joining the ruling party after officially resigning as the Chairman of Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA)’s Board of Trustees.
The lawmaker, who is also the Chairman of SLOK Holding, served as the Governor of Abia State from 29 May 1999 to 29 May 2007 and currently represents Abia North Senatorial District in the National Assembly.
