When Governor Bassey Edet Otu picked up a pen in May 2026, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu was standing right beside him. The document on the table was not a bill, not a budget, but the presidential nomination form of Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Kalu signed it, photographed it, and posted it himself.
“Today, alongside Governor of Cross River State, Gov Bassey Edet Otu, I signed the presidential nomination form of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu,” he wrote on his verified Facebook page.
“We remain united in our commitment to his vision and the continued progress of Nigeria.”
In APC politics, you don’t get invited to sign the President’s form by accident. It is a card reserved for the inner circle, a public stamp of trust.
For Kalu, it was the clearest sign that his long friendship with Tinubu has become a job description.
That job was defined a month earlier inside the Villa. After a closed-door meeting with the President in Abuja, Kalu emerged and announced that Tinubu had given him a marching order: go and coordinate the APC in Abia State.
As the most senior former governor in the state and current senator for Abia North, Kalu said he would unify stakeholders to secure Tinubu’s re-election.
In the South-East, where the APC has always fought for acceptance, Tinubu needed a familiar face with a strong base and his own media muscle. Kalu, owner of The Sun and New Telegraph and founder of Slok Holding, fit.
Since then, Kalu has not stopped selling.
On Channels Television’s Politics Today in August 2026, he looked straight into the camera and declared Tinubu “the candidate to beat in 2027.”
It was not a throwaway line. He framed it as economic analysis. “The macro side of the economy has been stabilised. The exchange rate is stabilising, fuel prices are stabilising, foreign direct investments are coming in, and confidence is gradually returning,” he said.
He then added the line no other Tinubu promoter wants to say out loud. “As a businessman, I manufacture goods, and I know the microeconomy is not doing well.
“President Tinubu himself knows Nigerians are suffering.” He blamed food prices on banditry keeping farmers off their farms and said security operations would fix it.
That split-screen honesty is his sales method. When pressed if government should apologise for hardship, he pointed outward. Russia-Ukraine war, Middle East tensions, shipping routes disrupted, even America and the UK struggling.
On the messy legacy of the previous APC government printing money through Ways and Means, he admitted it happened. “We advised the executive that they shouldn’t print money, and we have equally advised President Tinubu against it,” he said, claiming Tinubu has stopped it.
He sells character as much as policy. At his country home in Bende, surrounded by party faithful, he said, “My desire is to see President Bola Tinubu winning again. He has a Lion’s heart. He is bold. He is not afraid in taking decisions.”
When a youth coalition urged him to run himself and suggested Zamfara Governor Dauda Lawal or Adamawa Governor Umar Fintiri as running mate, his office shut it down instantly.
“The presidency in 2027 is definitely out of the question for Senator Kalu. He has publicly endorsed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for re-election and is committed to supporting his administration’s policies. To sustain these reforms, there must be a focus on long-term stability, and the President needs the maximum eight years to achieve this,” the statement read.
“No Nigerian leader has taken on the challenge of reforming Nigeria’s dwindling economy like President Tinubu.
Since he has taken the bull by the horns, the best thing Nigerians can do is to encourage him and re-elect him in 2027.”
In Maryland, USA, in September 2026, before Nigerians in the diaspora, he pushed the same product with a different analogy. “So, what President Tinubu is doing, I understand very well.
“Most people don’t understand. Most Nigerians don’t understand,” he said, comparing Tinubu’s “painful” reforms to Singapore’s transformation.
He is also Tinubu’s human shield. When Cardinal John Onaiyekan and Catholic bishops told the President that hardship and insecurity were worsening, and some presidential media aides fired back, the backlash was immediate. Kalu jumped on national TV. “Any day President Tinubu has disrespect for the Catholic Church, I’d resign from the APC.
“The President can never insult the Catholic bishop, knowing him,” he said. He called Tinubu “one of their best friends” of the Catholic Church and said bishops are the conscience of the nation.
“What politicians cannot tell a president, a Catholic bishop can say.”
In the same interview he declared Tinubu has “no competition” and that government’s only failure was not marketing its wins. He even predicted a split ballot that raised eyebrows in his own party: Tinubu will win Abia for president, while Labour’s Alex Otti, his former banker whom he calls “my brother,” will win governor. Asked if he was in alliance with Otti, he said “No. Sure, APC can win Abia.” The comment drew fire from Abia APC chieftain Chief Charles Ogbonnaya, who accused him of anti-party activity.
Kalu’s response was blunt. “Don’t be deceived by social media noise; real politics is done on the ground. I’m ready to die for APC. We are restructuring our local chapters, and our presence is growing stronger.”
At 65, after two terms as governor from 1999 to 2007, two terms in the Senate and chairing the Senate Committee on South East Development Commission, Kalu knows what he is selling: continuity.
“Tinubu Will Win 2027 Election, Fixing Economy,” he tells anyone who listens, warning that if Tinubu wins without APC lawmakers, he will lack voting power in the National Assembly.
Rubby Obinna
October 25, 2026.
