THE crisis in the Imo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, escalated yesterday after leading chieftains of the party called on the national leadership of the party to expel Governor Rochas Okorocha from the party.
THE crisis in the Imo State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, APC, escalated yesterday after leading chieftains of the party called on the national leadership of the party to expel Governor Rochas Okorocha from the party.
The demand made by Senators Ifeany Ararume, Hope Uzodinma, Osita Izunaso among others came as the confusion on ground deepened with different factions of the party suspending leading lights of each other.
The stakeholders in a petition to the national leadership of the party affirmed that for the party to be repositioned to win the Southeast in 2019 that the party must get rid of Governor Okorocha. Consequently, they asked the president to declare a state of emergency in Imo as a way of halting further violence in the area. In a strongly worded letter to the national chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the stakeholders said; “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 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, inspite 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 misgovernance, 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.
