The Imo state governor, Rochas Okorocha, has accused the National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, of trying to destroy the party because he was finishing his tenure as the party’s chairman.
The governor, who had in recent time, been enmeshed in war of words with his party’s national chairman, took an evaluation of Oyegun’s leadership of the APC and concluded that party leaders must have overrated Oyegun’s capacity in allowing him succeed Chief Bisi Akande as the National Chairman of APC.
Okorocha said that the Edo-born politician has taken the party backward by several kilometres to the extent that presently there is no state where the party does not have crisis or faction.
He maintained that the way Oyegun pursued the issue of elongation showed how selfish and greedy he is.
Okorocha spoke in a statement signed and made available to reporters in Owerri, the state capital, by his Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemeodo.
In the statement, he held that the worst thing that would have happened to APC was to allow Oyegun continue as the national chairman of the party, as according to him, it would have been worst for the Party.
The governor said, “Chief Akande never tried to destroy the Party because he was leaving as the Pioneer Chairman unlike Chief Oyegun” whom he accused of trying to destroy the party because he is leaving.
Okorocha continued, “He (Oyegun) is not patriotic. In the case of Imo, he disobeyed two Court Orders with regard to the Congresses in Imo and the inauguration of strange elements as the State officials of the Party just to get at Governor Okorocha because of the issue of elongation.
“And we have no option now than to ask our lawyers to press for his imprisonment and that of Osita Izunaso and all those who were involved in the lawlessness.
“The only thing Chief Oyegun has achieved in his anger against Governor Okorocha is encouraging elements with no electoral value like Osita Okechukwu and those from Imo to be insulting the Governor. And these are people who cannot win their booths in an election.
“The same elements came together during the Anambra state governorship election. The governor stayed away and at the end of the day, they could not justify their noise making. They have also started again. And these are people who have been running election since 2007 and have not won any.”
Recalling that Oyegun was quoted to have said in an interview that the South-East and Imo APC stakeholders were united against Okorocha, the statement said, “Let them hold South-East rally or Imo rally at a venue and let Rochas hold his own at another location and let’s see the outcome.”
The governor said he won his election in 2011 without any of the media-created politicians and also won in 2015 without them and would make the party win in 2019 without them, dismissing his opponents as noise makers.
He continued, “Oyegun does not know, Imo APC members won’t allow any faction. The APC in Imo and even in the South-East is Governor Okorocha’s making.
“And it will be foolish of anybody to think that he would build the Party and allow cowards to take it over. If they have the political strength, let them go and pick a party and present a candidate, and it will be very interesting.
“And if Rochas Okorocha is no more the political figure to watch in Imo, why then are they bothered about the ambition of Uche Nwosu? Why is the issue of Uche Nwosu giving them unprecedented headache? They are bothered because they feel that with the Governor behind Uche Nwosu, he would win. And they are right.”
