IMO, MAY 9, 2018 – Citing alleged manipulation and hijacking of sensitive electoral materials by his opponents during the last Saturday All Progressives Congress (APC) ward congress, Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has advised the party’s National Executive Council (NEC) to cancel the exercise.
Through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Samuel Onwuemedo, the governor lambasted Senators Ifeanyi Ararume, Benjamin Uwajimogu, Hope Uzodinma, Osita Izunaso and his Deputy, Prince Eze Madumere, for being the instruments used to disrupt the ward congresses.
Other top politicians on APC platform that incurred the governor’s wrath were Sir Jude Ejiogu, the immediate past Secretary to Imo State Government (SGF), Chief T. Ekechi, former Commissioner for Information, Dr. Hillary Eke, the state APC Chairman, Chuks Ololo, Ogechi’s husband, the governor’s younger sister, who is the Commissioner for Happiness and Purpose Fulfilment,
The governor did not spare Ichie Best Mbanaso, his age-long friend and immediate past Senior Adviser for Urban Renewal Projects, who was also a commissioner in Okorocha’s administration.
In a statement he issued on Tuesday in Owerri on Tuesday, Okorocha said: “These people will not find peace for biting the finger that fed them. I just saw high level of insincerity and betrayal. People you taught are human beings are worse than animals. Ingratitude! All these people are my sons and I made them politically and economically, but today, they have ganged up and conspired to fight me. We will see, I tell them, I have an abundant grace of God to surmount their antics”
He reiterated his earlier charge to the Commissioner of Police (who was transferred yesterday) to set every machinery in motion for the arrest and prosecution of the man at the centre of the storm, Mr. Ini Okori, the Chairman of the State Ward Congresses Electoral Committee, who allegedly “disappeared” at the Owerri residence of the National Organising Secretary of APC, Senator Osita Izunaso, when the governor and the police commissioner of Police stormed the house based on alleged information of then an on-going electioneering irregularities.
The governor equally expressed regret over the alleged role Senator Izunaso played in the saga as he accused him of not divorcing his local and personal political interests from his official responsibilities as the APC National Organising Secretary.
He also stated that if not that he played his role as a governor and as a father, to manage the situation; the unfortunate role of these people would have thrown the State into a very big crisis which probably nobody would have been in a position to imagine its outcome by now.
Okorocha said that for Izunaso to argue before them with Mr. Ini, who was sent by the party national secretariat to conduct the congresses over who among themselves was quite despicable. And it showed that they never wanted the congress to be successful abinition, he said.
The governor advised that those who never believed that APC as a political party had prospect at the initial stage and who called him all sorts of names, including Alhaji in Government House and Okoro-Hausa must not be allowed to disturb the peace of the party in the state.
