According to the National Support Group of Senate Chief Whip Orji Kalu, reports from a former member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Adamu Garba, claiming that President-elect Asiwaju Bola Tinubu received only 8,000 votes from Abia State are false.
The “OUK Grassroots Movement” argued that Garba’s submission is not only incorrect but also demonstrates his ignorance.
They claimed that Kalu helped the All Progressives Congress (APC) win the presidential elections by casting over 300,000 votes.
Alhaji Murtala Mohammed, the group’s leader, said in a press release on Tuesday that Garba has no moral standing to advise the party leadership because he recently left the party only to return a month later.
Murtala stated this while responding to Garba’s statement on national television, in which he stated that members of the APC in the South East had not done enough to earn the right to demand that the Senate President’s office be relocated to the South East.
In response, the pressure group claimed that the comment was intended to jeopardise Kalu’s chances of becoming the next Senate President in June, and that such an attempt would fail.
The statement read thus:
Our attention has been drawn to a fake news story flying on social media platforms that Orji Uzor Kalu gave Tinubu only 8000 votes during the Presidential election. That’s an insult to the Distinguished Senator and former Governor who has the capacity to run for President. How can someone who has a national political structure give Tinubu only 8000 votes during the Presidential election? It’s not true
For the record, we formed a Movement to mobilize support for the former Abia Governor to run for President and we were able to mobilize supporters across all the 36 States of the federation and FCT, Abuja, but when it became clear that our principal is not going to run for President, we collapsed our structure for Tinubu and eventually we gave Tinubu over 300,000 votes
What I am saying is that the political structure of Orji Uzor Kalu cuts across the whole country because he has followers and supporters all over the 36 States and FCT Abuja, so it is wrong to use votes from Abia State and the Southeast geopolitical zone to judge his contribution to the election of Tinubu as President during February Presidential election.