After four days of unsuccessful attempts to upturn the outcome of the ward congress of the All Progressives Congress (APC) held in Imo State last Saturday, Governor Rochas Okorocha has said that he was being punished by party’s National Working Committee (NWC) for opposing its tenure elongation project.
In a statement signed by his spokesman, Sam Onwuemodo, in Owerri, the Imo State capital on Thursday, the governor argued that the ward congress did not hold last Saturday but the state APC Chairman, Chief Hilary Eke, said the congress was successful and peaceful.
Okorocha said that the stealing of the sensitive materials denied the teeming members of the party participation, adding that they would pursue it to its logical conclusion so that Nigerians know better, the debilitating characters of some of the so-called political leaders.
The governor said that the congress outcome could only be adjudged the price he has to pay over his stand on the much orchestrated elongation of tenure for the NWC members led by Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, which according to him has failed.
Okorocha continued: “The position of the governor on the tenure elongation was in the overall interest of the party and the members, and that was the most popular position all those who love the party had taken, but it appears some people are yet to purge themselves of the unnecessary anger that could have arisen from the botched tenure elongation stuff.”
Okorocha said that in taking the posture he took on the elongation of tenure, “he never targeted any person, but was keen in the progress and future of the party which could not have been sacrificed because of the personal interests of some people.”
The governor argued that it must have been the only reason that the sensitive materials meant for the ward congresses in the state developed wings, arguing that either the APC National Organising Secretary who is from the state, Chief Osita Izunaso and the Chairman of the Congress Committee, Mr. Ini Okori, was in position of the sensitive materials.
According to the Chairman of the APC Governors Forum, the beauty of the ward congress outcome has shown that ” those making all the noise in Imo APC using Abuja as their base, are afraid of going to the field for a healthy competition, thereby proving us right in our repeated claim that these people are media creations. They do not go home and have never helped anybody. They are afraid of one man, one vote policy.”
