Mascot, a younger brother to a former Abia State governor, Orji Uzor-Kalu, said this will be made possible by the infighting and instability within the two big parties, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.
The PDP, which is the ruling party in the state, just lost its governorship candidate, Prof. Uche Ikonne, who died at the National Hospital Abuja; however, Orji-Kalu said it will be difficult for the party to produce a unified candidate within the stipulated 14-day period.
"Abia is so polarized that the two big parties are not in play for the governorship." They have legal issues, they have candidacy issues, and as you said, "Rest in peace, professor Ikonne." With this new tussle, they have to present a new candidate in 14 days, according to the INEC guidelines.
"They are so broken up; can they come together and produce one unified candidate?" "That we very much doubt, so Abia State will have a governor from the minority party," Uzor-Kalu said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Friday.
He noted that even though PDP remains a strong party in the state, the fact that they are currently a "broken party" will open things up for a minority party to emerge victorious in the governorship election in March.
On the growing profile of another candidate from a minority party, Alex Otti of the Labour Party, Uzor-Kalu said he was not afraid of Otti, adding that he has an edge over the flag bearer of the Labour Party because Abia people prefer a younger person as their next governor.
"Alex is not feared by anybody; he is an economist, and I am an economist. So I am not afraid of Alex. Both of us were once in APC, and we left APC because of the things we foresaw in APC. He moved to Labour, and I moved to the Action People's Party.
"He’s doing his campaign, and I’m doing mine, but the odds favor me because the Abia people want a younger person, a more aggressive person, somebody who is different," the APP candidate said.
