The Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has accused the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Oyegun, of collaborating with the National Organising Secretary of the party, Sen. Osita Izunaso, to cause problem in the state chapter of the party .
Okorocha, who accused Oyegun of being on “a vendetta mission against him” following his position on the protracted tenure elongation for the national leadership of the party, said he (Okorocha) remained the face of the APC in the South-East .
Okorocha spoke in a statement issued on Friday by his Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemedo.
He challenged the members of the party fighting him to allow party congresses to hold in the 305 wards in the state than to “run to Abuja to manipulate the process .”
The statement read in part, “The so-called Imo stakeholders can only ‘cage’ Governor Rochas Okorocha like they have claimed in the media in the offices of the National Chairman of the party, Chief John Oyegun and the National Organising Secretary of the Party, Chief Osita Izunaso, who are on vendetta mission against the governor over his innocent and patriotic stand on the issue of tenure elongation.
“And in any case, only ingrates can claim caging the man God used to uplift them politically. All those in the insolvent group called coalition are all beneficiaries of Okorocha’s political successes in Imo.”
The Imo State governor said he thought that the outcome of the Anambra State governorship election would have made some of the NWC members of the party to be in a position to “detach noise making from reality.”
Okorocha further stressed that the recently held APC ward congress in the state was marred by confusion and controversies.
In another statement, the governor stated that the state’s Independent National Electoral Commission had released the report of the congress, which he said had confirmed that sensitive materials, including result sheets, were not provided during the election.
It claimed that the state’s INEC Administrative Secretary, Mr. T.O.N. Ongele, confirmed that the exercise was characterised, “in its entirety”, with confusion and controversies.
The statement read in part, “It is pertinent to state that the ward congress in its entirety was characterised by confusion and controversies as reported by the officers who monitored the congress at the various wards and local government areas.
“At a point, we were told that the Congress Committee Panel that was posted to Imo State was swapped with that of Anambra State, but no letter to that effect was received by the Resident Electoral Commissioner.
“In some of the local government areas, the INEC observers reported that result sheets were not provided and in some areas, electoral personnel were not seen. In some other instances, the INEC monitors were told on arrival that the congress had been concluded. In some other places, there was no evidence that the congress took place.”
The statement quoted the Electoral Officer for Mbaitoli Local Government Council, Mary Odilinye, as saying that INEC staff were redeployed to various party officers to monitor the exercise but that on reaching there, the different party offices were locked up. (Punch)
