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Chief Emeka Charles Kalu, a power engineer and former Peoples Democratic Party chieftain now eyeing the Abia North Senatorial seat, says he is pressing ahead with his 2027 legislative bid under the Labour Party platform and has ruled out stepping aside for incumbent Senator Orji Uzo Kalu, leaving the decision, he said, entirely to the electorate.
Kalu, who heads the Global Initiatives for Good Governance and the Eck Foundation, spoke across a range of national and state political issues, offering assessments of the FCT council elections, the condition of opposition politics, and the internal pressures building inside the ruling All Progressives Congress ahead of the next general election cycle.
On the APC’s sweep of the Federal Capital Territory council polls — territory the PDP long regarded as dependable ground — Kalu was measured.
He attributed the outcome to superior grassroots mobilisation and the gravitational pull of federal incumbency rather than any permanent realignment of voter sentiment. The opposition, he said, needed to reorganise rather than resign itself to the result.
His reading of the broader opposition picture was less generous. The African Democratic Congress managed only a single chairmanship seat in the FCT polls, and Kalu pointed to internal fragmentation, poor coordination, and shallow community penetration as the reasons.
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He acknowledged that opposition coalitions require time to consolidate but said 2027 remained contestable if the alignment work was done seriously. “Nigerians are watching governance outcomes closely,” he said, adding that credibility would ultimately determine how the vote breaks.
On the APC itself, Kalu predicted turbulence. The wave of defections swelling the ruling party’s ranks was, in his view, a liability as much as a show of strength.
The jostling for position that typically follows mass recruitment, he said, risked producing congress disputes and primary battles that could strain the party’s cohesion well before voting begins.
Kalu is a declared supporter of Abia State Governor Alex Otti and intends to contest on the Labour Party platform Otti has helped build credibility for in the state. He credited the governor with exposing what he described as systematic looting under previous administrations — alleging that trillions of naira had been drained from state coffers without corresponding development — and said Otti’s record of civil service reform and revenue system overhaul gave him a strong foundation for re-election regardless of APC pressure from influential figures of Abia origin.
He was more guarded, however, when asked about allegations of heavy-handedness surrounding the Abia International Airport City project. Communities hosting the development have accused the state government of seizing ancestral land without adequate resettlement or compensation. Without directly defending the governor, Kalu called for transparent engagement and lawful resettlement processes, saying development could not be pursued at the cost of justice. He did not indicate whether he had raised the matter directly with Otti’s administration.
On the attack against former Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi and other opposition figures in Benin City, Kalu was unequivocal in condemning the violence while stopping short of directly attributing culpability to Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo, despite earlier reported remarks by the governor that were widely interpreted as a veiled threat against Obi.
Political intolerance, he said, eroded democratic norms and state executives carried an obligation to guarantee the safety of all citizens within their jurisdiction.
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Kalu also raised constitutional objections to President Bola Tinubu’s use of executive orders to modify provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act — legislation that took more than two decades of legislative effort to pass.
He said frequent executive interventions in major fiscal frameworks risked undermining the separation of powers and the intent of the National Assembly.
Separately, he urged caution in response to a recent call by Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, for South Easterners to arm themselves against potential terrorist threats. While acknowledging the constitutional basis for self-defence, he said rhetoric around civilian armament risked compounding insecurity rather than containing it, and that the primary duty of protection rested with the state.
Kalu’s senatorial aspiration puts him on a potential collision course with Senator Orji Uzo Kalu, one of the most entrenched political figures in the Abia North zone. Asked whether he would yield to the incumbent, he declined. The people, he said, would have the final word.
