Some leaders and chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State have revealed how Governor Rochas Okorocha was ‘caged’ in order to avert the imminent collapse of the party in the state.
Theo Ekechi, who spoke to journalists after a close-door meeting with the APC national leadership on Thursday in Abuja, said the stakeholders had overwhelming evidence against Okorocha.
This, he said, had made it impossible for the governor to get attention from any quarter in the state and in the South-east region.
“There have been wide jubilation in Imo because we have rescued the party from Okorocha; we have made it impossible for him to get help from anywhere.
“He cannot run to any political figure in the state because none is with him; he cannot approach any clergyman in the state.
“In his desperation, he ran to Sokoto, Daura and even to the Vice President, but help has failed to come,” he said.
Ekechi said Okorocha’s inaction is responsible for the problems facing the party in the state and the South-east generally.
In a petition submitted to the party’s national leadership, the stakeholders chronicled what they described as the governor’s sins, and called for a state of emergency in Imo.
He urged the party’s national chairman to bring to the notice of President Muhammadu Buhari the crisis in Imo State before it completely gets out of hand.
Ekechi alleged that the state is being mismanaged under Okorocha, adding that the governor is running the state like a personal estate.
He also alleged that the governor is harassing and intimidating perceived opponents in the state.
While Ekechi and others say the ward congress in the state was held with Okorocha and his supporters losing out, the governor has insisted that it was not held, alleging manipulation.
The APC local government congress, held in most parts of the country last Saturday, was postponed in Imo State due to the crisis.
As if Okorocha’s travails are not huge enough, leading chieftains of the party have called on the national leadership of the party to expel the governor from the party.
The demand was made by Senators Ifeany Ararume, Hope Uzodinma, Osita Izunaso and other party leaders.
The stakeholders in a petition to the national leadership of the party asserted that for the party to be repositioned to win the Southeast in 2019, it must get rid of Owelle Rochas Okorocha.
The stakeholders wrote to the National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun saying:
“As our party chairman, kindly bring to the notice of our dear President that should the governor, in his megalomania, procure further violence in his child-like tantrums, a state of emergency in Imo State would be a natural consequence.
There’s no other state that the president visited five times to appeal to its people and yet we wobbled. Our party must rid itself of this incorrigible worm, he is indeed a cankerworm.
“This attempt to drag the state into further violence in the face of a non-existent State Assembly only points to the complete breakdown of an already non-existent governance for which the state of emergency envisaged in the Section 305 of our Constitution is to be declared.”
Those who signed the letter on behalf of Imo APC stakeholders include Senators Ben Uwajimogu, Hope Uzodinma, Ifeanyi Araraume, Osita Izunaso, Hon. Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, Hon. Mike Ohia and Hon. Austin Chukwukere.
The APC chairman in Oguta Local Government Area, who is the leader of all the APC local government chairmen in the state, Hon. Cassidy Ohamara equally aligned his group with the contents of the letter.
They thanked the National Working Committee of the party “for standing firm to the rules and guidelines of our party and upholding our duly conducted and video recorded congresses across our State, in spite of the unruly and unlawful conduct/misconduct of our state governor, who happens to be one of our party members”.
“You may thus be alarmed that with the near bankruptcy of our state, reeling in this wanton mis-governance, is yet the subject of the threat contained in the governor’s letter to you stating that he is aware of the burning of the Secretariat of our party. Whilst threatening further mayhem. He also has forwarded to you his videos of those he caught with result sheets (which the party did not report missing). The governor having arrested those people (who are contractors of Government House, Owerri), and having called the police and the media himself, proceeded to conduct the investigation himself”.
The letter was copied the President Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chairman and Deputy Chairman (South) of the Party, National Assembly, all State Governors, the National Security Adviser, the Inspector General of Police, DG, Department of State Services as well as members of the National Working Committee NWC of the party for necessary action.