Revealed: Okorocha Frustrated Ndigbo's Chance - APC Spokesman

 

When I saw Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, on the television praising self for having contested and lost, I felt ashamed as “Onye Igbo”.

Now I feel better since more voices are coming out to correct such a wrong notion.

A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the South-East, Osita Okechukwu, has accused governor Rochas of putting Ndigbo in a weak position to bargain for Vice President in the 2015 general elections.

Okorocha had stated: “By participating in the contest, I have been able to prove that the president can come from any part of the country. It is the understanding of APC that the president should come from the North ever since. I know about that, but I don’t like those facts, so I have come to distort those facts which are not the truth.”

But in a statement yesterday Sunday, December 14, 2014, Okechukwu, who is the spokesman of APC in the South-East, asked Okorocha if the distortion of facts was more important than the collective interest of the marginalized Ndigbo.

Here is what Sunday said:

“His Excellency’s statement is one of self denial, for rather than apologising to Ndigbo for his gambit, which made Ndigbo to lose the national chairmanship of the APC, placed us in a weak position to vie for Vice President, he is regrettably justifying the unjustifiable.

“One had thought that as a leader he could have placed the collective interest of Ndigbo above his Nollywood show, since he is quite aware of the position of the party as regards zoning.

“For the avoidance of doubt, in a South East Caucus meeting at His Excellency, Dr Ogboninya Onu’s residence at Abuja in July, 2014, some of us agreed that he is eminently qualified to vie for presidency, but given the prevailing understanding that the presidency is going North, we should vie for chairmanship and vice president slots, waiting for the next eight years when it is coming South.  He refused and boasted that he is going to win the presidential primary.

“I personally narrated to him that zoning like every convention has its moral weight, the North having patriotically zoned the presidency to the South. I further persuaded him to go back to Imo State and conclude the good works he is doing so as to present a good legacy, when the rotation comes South, the South West and South South having occupied the coveted presidency respectively since our return to civil rule in 1999. That Dr Onu should be supported for chairmanship, he backed out.”

Okechukwu challenged Governor Okorocha to openly apologize to Ndigbo for throwing away the golden opportunity Ndigbo had to produce either chairman or Vice President if he had listened to reason, rather than rationalizing irrational disposition of his.

He maintained that Ndigbo should hold Governor Okorocha responsible for their marginalization in the APC and not their brothers from the South South or South West.