A pressure group within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), under the aegis of the Concerned South East APC Stakeholders, has warned that undermining the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha in the affairs of the party in the Southeast, will not be in the best interest of the party.
The group in a statement jointly signed by its convener and the secretary, Hon. Kemdi Ekwuaba and Chief Hon. Moris Ikediash, respectively, insisted that sharing positions zoned to the South East without reference to the Imo State governor is dubious.
According to the statement:“ We want to state that Governor Rochas Okorocha has become the new face of Imo and South-East politics.
The APC and its leadership as the ruling party should be celebrating success and not failure.
“The reported meeting of APC leaders from the South East during which they shared offices zoned to the area to some people without reference to Governor Rochas Okorocha, the only APC governor in the South- East is dubious”.
“It is unfortunate that instead of using Governor Okorocha to ensure that APC wins more states in the South East, the enemies of the party from within are even working to bring down the party in Imo that is already APC and also block the party’s chances of making progress in other South-East states.
“In 2015, when the issues of religion and tribe featured prominently in the South East politics concerning the 2015 election, Governor Okorocha even at the risk of his second term, left APGA and took the bold step of joining the merger that formed APC. Trying now to undermine Rochas in the state or in the South- East is not in the best interest of the party.”.
It added: “Governor Rochas Okorocha joined the merger that metamorphosed into APC, when Imo was the target of the PDP controlled Federal Government. He ran the election against a sitting deputy speaker of House of Representatives and with INEC, army, Police and other Federal Government agencies deployed against him.
“Yet, he won the election, produced 24 out of the 27 House of Assembly members, three House of Representatives members, and an elected Senator on the ticket of the party.”