DEFECTION TO APC: Okorocha, Obiano fight dirty

01-02-2017 

 

Governors Rochas Okorocha of Imo State and his An­ambra State coun­terpart, Chief Willie Obiano, have returned to the trench­es over the former’s allegation that three governors from the South East zone are set to de­fect to the ruling All Progres­sives Congress (APC).

In their renewed war of words on the matter on Tues­day, the governors threw decen­cy and dignity to the wind as they called each other names, using even unprintable words.

Governor Okorocha, who fired back at Obiano over his earlier banter that the Imo State chief executive officer repre­sented the “opposite of a true leader”, described the Anambra governor as a “clueless leader”.

Okorocha added that “Obi­ano is more a militant than as a state chief executive.” Obi­ano, however maintained that Okorocha is “what a true lead­er ought not to be.”

 

 He said that Okorocha lacked the leadership quali­ties to lead any person into the APC, adding that the APC, as a party, had failed at the feder­al level to “inspire other gover­nors to crossover” to it.

Irked by Obiano’s statement, Okorocha, through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Sam On­wuemeodo, stated that he re­gretted the media attack on his person by the “clueless governor of Anambra State, Chief Willie Obiano, over a harmless state­ment he made at the APC stake­holders’ meeting in Owerri that three governors in the South East would soon join the APC.”

He recalled that the gov­ernors of Enugu and Ebonyi States harmlessly reacted to the comment but expressed shock that Obiano went the extreme to attack him in the media.

Onwuemeodo, said: “That statement didn’t call for insult or any foul language. And two responsible governors in the zone, the Enugu and Ebonyi States’ governors were quot­ed to have reacted to Governor Okorocha’s claim and as decent men, made their points without any attack.”

According to Onwuemeo­do, “Governor Obiano of An­ambra State spoke to justify or authenticate the general impres­sion about me that he is an ag­gressive governor, who should have done better as a militant than as a governor.”

Governor Okorocha stressed that his utterance was a healthy one in a democracy and does not warrant insults from anyone.

Comparing their achieve­ments, Okorocha said: “Lead­ership is all about ideas and service. Luckily enough, Obi­ano has been governor for al­most four years while Okorocha has also been governor for five years now. Let Obiano publish his achievements in Anambra State even with high Internal­ly-Generated Revenue (IGR), and let Governor Okorocha also publish his achievements in Imo. Then, we take off from there”.

On an Igbo man becoming the President of Nigeria, Okoro­cha said: “Again, Anambra State that produced the first Nigeri­an President needs a digital gov­ernor and not an “analogue” governor or one who staggers, thinking about which leg to put forward first.”

Obiano, who came into of­fice on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), said that the APC had “failed at the level of the Federal Government and could not in­spire the governors to join the party”.

Speaking through his spokesman, Mr. James Eze, the Anambra governor said: “The question should be, ‘has Rochas Okorocha provided an inspir­ing leadership for the people of Imo State under APC’? So, why would any governor in Nigeria heed Okorocha’s call? Okorocha is an example of what a leader should not be.”

Power shift imminent in South East, says Adiaso

Meanwhile, decamping of prominent Igbo politicians from other parties to the APC, has been described as a pointer to an imminent power shift in Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and An­ambra States.

An APC chieftain in Abia State, Chief Chamberlain Oke­chukwu Adiaso, said that the mass movement of eminent Igbo political leaders from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC, was an in­dication of the zone’s endorse­ment of President Muham­madu Buhari.

Adiaso said the recent de­fection of former Senate Presi­dent Ken Nnamani, has opened the floodgate of political re-alignments in Igboland, adding that it would result in a sweep­ing victory for the APC in the 2019 general elections.

He said that the history of political alignments in Nigeria always saw a fusion of South Eastern and Northern politi­cians, especially with respect to producing the President of the country.

The politician pointed out that he was not surprised, therefore, to see the movement of Igbo leaders to the APC, be­ing the ruling party at the fed­eral level.

Adiaso said that blackmail by members of the PDP that the APC-led Federal Government was not benefitting the com­mon man in the country had failed, adding that the false sto­ry that the APC administration was a northern government had equally been debunked as po­litical awareness had spread to the electorate at the grassroots.