The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is set to issue a certificate of return to Dr. Orji Kalu, a former governor of Abia State, who was declared winner of the Abia senatorial election last month.
INEC had listed Dr. Kalu as one of the 100 senators-elect from the February 23 election who would be issued return certificates at a ceremony scheduled for Thursday morning in Abuja.
It should be recalled that, Kalu polled 31,201 votes, according to Charles Anumudu, the INEC returning officer for the district, while incumbent senator, Mao Ohuabunwa of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 20,801 votes in the election.
Going to the senate will be Mr. Kalu’s second time of being in the national assembly, he was “a member of the House of Representatives in the aborted third republic.”
Senate President Should be zoned to South-East. Kalu is the best shot – Okorie
In another development, the South-East political leaders have urged the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, to zone the senate president to Igbo region.
According to the political actors, zoning Senate President to South-East would be a sure way of bringing the region back to the fold and diffuse feelings of marginalisation and exclusion by the present administration.
Among the political leaders who raised the campaign is the National Chairman of the United People’s Party (UPP), Chief Chekwas Okorie; former executive chairman, Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi; and former commissioner for Information in Imo State, Nze Elvis Agukwe.
According to Okorie; “the former Abia State governor, Abia North senator-elect, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu is the best man for the position”.
“Any person with any sense of proportion, equity and fair play would not need to be lobbied to know that it’s just fair and equitable that the senate presidency should go to the South East and the speaker of the House of Representatives to the North; the North East can have that. They already have it in Yakubu Dogara; maybe another person can now have it.”
