A former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, on Tuesday said that there was no truth in the speculations making the rounds in the state that he was about joining the opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party from the All Progressives Congress.
Okorocha in a statement issued by his media aide in Owerri, Sam Onwuemeodo, said that the state governor, Hope Uzodinma, can’t blackmail him out of the ruling party.
The statement said that the state government came with fake news that Okorocha was joining PDP after Okorocha led other APC chieftains in the state to the ruling party’s national secretariat in Abuja.
The statement alleged that Uzodinma was not a member of the APC until the Supreme Court pronounced him the governor of the state on January 14, 2020.
The statement read, “Governor Hope Uzodinma cannot and will not blackmail Senator Rochas Okorocha out of the All Progressives Congress. Governor Uzodinma was behind the fake story of Senator Rochas Okorocha leaving the APC for the PDP, last Monday.
“He had come up with the fake story of Okorocha leaving APC because the National Secretariat of the Party had set up a reconciliation Committee. And also because of Okorocha’s visit to the National office of the party with men and women who had sacrificed all they had to make APC the party to beat in Imo and with National Assembly members who have the mandate of the people.
“Governor Uzodinma was never a member of APC. He joined APC after he had been announced governor by the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court had given Judgement that the Candidate of APC in the 2019 governorship election was Uche Nwosu. Showing that, Chief Uzodinma was a gatecrasher in APC.
“Yet, he does not want to be humble about that. He wants those who labored for APC to leave the party for him. There would not have been APC in Imo today if Okorocha didn’t take the political risk he took to make Imo APC.”
