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.”
