The only time since the return of democracy in 1999 that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s erstwhile ruling party, now main opposition, had not been in charge in Abia State was between 2007 and 2010 when the Progressive People’s Alliance (PPA) formed by Senator Orji Uzor Kalu, then governor of the state, produced Chief T.A. Orji as his successor.
Kalu, who was originally a PDP governor, formed the PPA in 2006, following his falling out with the then president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. And although he unsuccessfully ran for president on the party’s platform in 2007, he managed to ensure the emergence of T.A., his then chief of staff, as his successor on the party’s platform.
