Imo: Okorocha Faults 1.3m Votes for Jonathan

Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha

• Muazu: PDP will present first eleven in 2015

By Chuks Okocha   and Amby Uneze 

Imo State Governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha, at the weekend faulted over 1.3 million votes, which he said, were cast for President Goodluck Jonathan in the state in the 2011 presidential election.

But in another forum, the National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Adamu Muazu, assured Nigerians that the ruling party would field the best candidates in the 2015 general elections.

Okorocha spoke at the weekend shortly after former Governor of the state, Chief Achike Udenwa; Senator   Ifeanyi Ararume, Mr. Mike Ahamba and Senator Chris Anyanwu among others formally announced their defection to the PDP.

The governor, who addressed journalists at the Owerri Airport after their defection, described those who defected to the ruling party as political baggage and expired politicians with no political value.

He, therefore, said the ruling party was merely celebrating the return of expired politicians, who he said, could no longer make meaningful political impact on the state’s political landscape.

The governor queried the victory of the president in the state in 2011, noting that the state could give the president over 1.3 million votes whereas in the governorship poll, no less than 400,000 votes were cast in an election, which he said, had direct bearing on Imo people.

Okorocha said: “All of them admitted that the state gave the president 1.3 million votes three years ago. One question they should ask themselves is how the president got extra-ordinary 1.3 million votes. I became a sitting governor in the same state about 400,000 votes. So, how can somebody get 1.3millon votes?”

He said after three years of voting for the president in the 2011 presidential poll, he lamented that the president only visited the state to inaugurate human beings instead of inaugurating projects.
The governor added that the president’s would have definitely afforded him opportunity “to see massive infrastructure development going on in the state as against the back-drop that nothing much is being done.”

He, also, said those who joined PDP today “are much expired like expired medicine in medicine shop. So, for me, it was rather painful that the presidency can spend as much as N250 million, mobilising who is who in Nigeria to come to the state to buy products that are not up to N1million, politically in value. I think they must have deceived the president.

“The only ‘thank you’ we can get was to come and inaugurate Udenwa as a project from Orlu Zone, inaugurate Chris as a project from Owerri Zone and inaugurate Ararume for Okigwe Zone. These are three projects and an addendum, Mike Ahamba. How could you?

“So, all that we are good for is to cast vote and not good enough to receive the dividends of democracy. We are not fools. Look at those who gathered, these are the gatherings of the problem of the state. Thank God, they are now in one basket, very easy to evacuate politically.
“They know they could not have done these things, even the little they had was because of presidential presence. Let any of them come the other day, Let any of them invite 100 people in the state to visit them without paying for it. I think the Imo people will be weeping today.”

Okorocha, therefore, described his election in 2011 where he defeated his immediate predecessor, Mr. Ikedi Ohakim as a mandate freely given by the people of the state and not a political mistake as the ruling party claimed.

According to him, let say that PDP lied. It was not by accident I became governor. It was the mandate of the people freely given to the state. Let me put the record right, PDP has never won any election in this state.

Speaking in Abuja, Muazu said the ruling party would field its best candidates in the 2015 general election, noting that Only the first eleven “will be fielded in the 2015 general election.”
He therefore urged members of the party “to unite and ensure that their best would emerge in the forthcoming elections. Put your heads together and work for the overall interest of the party. Let there be no more internal wrangling. PDP is Imo state and Imo state is PDP.”