2019:ROCHAS OKOROCHA DECLARE FOR SENATE

Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha yesterday offered explanations on why he was running for the senate in the next year’s general election. According to him, his name listed as one of the contestants would be of great help to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidates in the state and across the country. Besides, Okorocha said having his name on the ballot paper would further boost President Muhammadu Buhari’s chances of a second term in office. Okorocha had on Monday said he would run for Imo West Senatorial Seat while addressing officials and leaders of APC from Ohaji/Egbema Local Government who had come to express their endorsement for his son-in-law, Chief Uche Nwosu for the governorship election in 2019. He said: “For myself, I had not planned to contest any other position for now, but I am seriously eyeing the Presidency once President Muhammadu Buhari is through with his second tenure. But if I decide to sit back and watch how things unfold, wolves will come and scatter the sheep for which I am the shepherd. “So, if I don’t give a shot at the Senate, evil men will hijack it. Therefore, I am thinking of doing something about Orlu Senatorial Seat. I say this because if my name appears on the list of contestants in the 2019 elections it will help President Buhari and the APC in particular and of course other candidates in the state. “But the best you can do for me is to go out there and register en masse. We must go back to the drawing Board and encourage our sons and daughters to go and register. The political war has started. You have to be cautious because robbers, killers and other form of characters and deceptions would surface but don’t get caught in their webs. “This is my seventh year in office as governor of Imo State. In fact, it is less than a year to terminate. But if I leave this office and be less concerned, the light of progress we have put on may be extinguished. We need to sustain the development strides in Imo state and if we can sustain it in the next ten years, Imo will be like London.” Meanwhile, a governorship hopeful under the platform of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr. Okey Ezeh has upbraided APC on its silence over a plan by Okorocha to make his son-in-law as the next governor of the state. This, he said should be a source of concern to the party which had prided itself as the needed change the country deserved. Ezeh said: “During the Abacha era, all manner of people were deployed across the nation and it was as if Abacha would succeed, the same process happened during the Obasanjo third term era. Governor Obong Victor Atta also tried to impose his son in-law on the people of Akwa-Ibom state but he failed woefully. So, there is no way it will work in Igbo land because we are very proud people. “Nevertheless, people like us will not take it for granted because of the level of poverty in the state and the enormous resource a state governor can dispense to buy his way through. “There must be a conscious effort by all wellmeaning Imo people to educate the people especially some of our youths who are all over the social media on the dangers of what the governor is trying to do. “The governor is free to endorse anyone, but we must not allow him use the enormous resources at his disposal to achieve his inordinate dream.”