Okorocha: APC Should Leave Imo Alone

The Imo State Governor and the senatorial candidate of the All
Progressives Congress (APC) for Imo West (Orlu zone), Rochas
Okorocha, has appealed to the National Publicity Secretary of the
party, Mr. Lanre Issa-Onilu, and those behind him to leave the Imo
State chapter of the party alone after they had inflicted deep cut
on the party by imposing a known Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
member as the governorship candidate of the party.

Okorocha was reacting to the declaration by the national
publicity secretary of the party that he had been removed as the
state Coordinator of President Muhammadu Buhari campaign
council.

According to a statement signed by Okorocha’s Chief Press
Secretary, Mr. Sam Onuwemeodo, he stated that 24 hours to the
presidential rally in Owerri, Issa-Onilu had no other contribution
to make to the event than to raise false and needless alarms and
making disturbing claims.

Onilu said APC had removed Okorocha as Imo State Campaign
Coordinator, noting also that APC had alerted the Police, DSS of
the plot to disrupt Owerri presidential rally by Okorocha and his
son in-law, Mr. Uche Nwosu.

Okorocha said: “It is unfortunate that in their relentless
effort to justify whatever they had eaten over the party’s
gubernatorial ticket in the state, they have decided to be callous
about the whole thing. Otherwise, they would have known that the
APC presidential rally slated for Owerri on Tuesday is Okorocha’s
event from A to Z.

“In any case, Okorocha has never been the party’s state Campaign
Coordinator. Okorocha is rather the President Buhari Campaign
Coordinator. He was among those inaugurated by the president, so
Issa Onilu and his group cannot remove who they never appointed.
His claim was borne out of ignorance.

“To say the least, Imo State is calm. Okorocha is totally and
duly in-charge. The presidential rally will take place and
peacefully too. They had raised that false alarm to discourage the
president from attending the rally like they did during the
presidential rally for youths and women.

“Does it not call for concern that the same folks, who said
Okorocha and Uche Nwosu have been deserted by Imo people, are the
same people now raising alarm that the duo has the capacity to
disrupt the rally?”

“The point is that truth lives while lies do not. These Abuja
based politicians have fed them with lies, and they took or bought
the lies wholeheartedly. Otherwise, how would someone think that a
man who went to the Senate through the court would now know Imo
politics more than a man who has won two governorship elections and
on the platforms of political parties that were not in power at the
centre?”

The governor also reminded Issa-Onilu and his co-travellers that
they should know the truth, and the truth should set them free from
whatever deal they had with the PDP man holding the APC
gubernatorial ticket, adding: “The presidential rally is going to
be a mega one and we are not living any stone unturned.”