APC CONGRESSES: Gov Okorocha loses out, runs to Buhari for help

Following the outcome of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ward congresses in Imo State last Saturday, Governor Rochas Okorocha on Sunday ran to President Muhammadu Buhari to seek for help.

Okorocha, who is the chairman of APC Governors Forum, seems to have lost out in the political maneuvering that led to the outcome of the conduct of the congress in the state.

The bigwigs in APC in Imo State including Okorocha’s deputy governor Prince Eze Madumere, senators Benjamin Uwajumogu, Hope Uzodimma, Osita Izunaso, and Ifeanyi Araraume, had before now sworn to salvage Imo State from Okorocha’s perceived impunity and nepotism.

The group were said to have had an upper hand over Okorocha with the result of the congress, as they were able to influence the exercise away from Okorocha’s preferred choices.

The Imo APC bigwigs and other chieftains of the party had recently done a petitioned against Okorocha to the party leadership, to complain of the governor’s ‘sins’.

Sequel to the result of the congress, Okorocha on Sunday rushed to see Buhari at his home town in Daura, Katsina State, where the President had earlier on Friday traveled to participate in his own ward congress.

While the Presidency had hinted of the meeting between Okorocha and Buhari in Daura, it however failed to disclose the agenda of the meeting.

However Okorocha, who spoke to newsmen, said he was in Daura to let Buhari know the ugly outcome of the ward congress in his own state.

“We expect internal democracy and internal democracy is the way to go. Those kinds of funny politics that were played must stop. A situation where people went to carry ballot boxes, steal results looks so primitive. I intimated Mr. President and we will make sure that such things stop,” Okorocha said.

Asked to comment on Buhari’s reply to his complaints, the governor said, “He spoke like the President and he will take the necessary steps to correct this in our party, the APC, not just in Imo State but across the whole nation, to make sure that there is respect for internal democracy in Imo State.”

READ ALSO: PDP petitions UN over Buhari’s plan to ‘truncate Nigeria’s democracy’

Meanwhile, chairman of Nigeria Governors Forum and Zamfara State Governor Abdulaziz Yari, who was also in Daura to see Buhari told newsmen that the outcome of the APC ward congresses went well in the north east region.

“You know in a democracy you cannot expect everything to work 100 percent. But in our region from the information available to us, everything went well in Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara and Kano. Where people expected that there may be a problem, the exercise was successful. But anybody that has complain, there is a committee set up by the national executive of the party, they should take their complaints there so that they will be attended to,” Yari said.

 

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