APC has lost five million voters, says Okorocha

The Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha have alleged that the fortune of the ruling All Progressives Congress has reduced drastically since the inception of the National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole.

He claimed that the party had lost about five million voters due to Oshiomhole’s highhandedness.

Okorocha, who is also the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum, made the allegation in an interview with State House correspondents shortly after a meeting he had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The governor, who is one of those calling for Oshiomhole’s removal based on the way the recent party primaries were handled, said he had since discovered that the party chairman acted without the backing of the President.

He said his investigation had shown that there was no directive from the President for the party chairman to act illegally as witnessed in some states.

Okorocha said he had also discovered that Oshiomhole was not under any instruction to replace candidates who won primary elections with others who did not win.

He urged the party chairman to learn to respect the rule of law and obey court orders where they apply.

“This issue of treating court orders as tissue papers must stop. It doesn’t reflect the image of our party.

“Oshiomhole must act quickly to fix the integrity of this party because his coming in ought to have brought joy into the party and not sadness,” Okorocha said.

Despite his allegation against the party chairman, however, the governor said the party would not disintegrate as long as the President remains the leader of the party.

The governor said Oshiomhole should be called to order.

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He added, “APC will not disintegrate for as long as the person, Muhammadu Buhari is still the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and remains the leader of this party.

“We cannot give that credit to the chairman. He cannot disintegrate this party, the party is still intact, just that many people are hurt.

“Since his inception and after these primaries, we are losing almost five million voters because of anger, protest everywhere and he needs to be called to order.

“He has to respect the rule of law, respect court orders and do the right thing – obey court orders where applicable and not turn himself into INEC.”

Okorocha said it was not possible for the party to replace his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, with Senator Hope Uzodinma as the party’s governorship candidate in the state.

“He cannot be standing on Hope Uzodinma because that man did not win election. You cannot compare somebody who won 265,000 votes with somebody who won 7,000 votes.

“He (Hope Uzodinma) never won election and you cannot impose a candidate who is unacceptable to the people on the people. That is how serious the matter is now.

“So, he (Oshiomhole) should do the right thing and I have advised him many times to do the right thing before he creates more disaffections in our party,” he said