A pro-Buhari group, the Presidential Support Committee (PSC), Southeast Zone, has handed a 48-hour ultimatum to the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to rescind the suspension of Imo State governor, Rochas Okorocha from the party.
The Committee at a Press Conference jointly addressed by the Director Inter-Party Affairs South East, Robert Ngwu, National Legal Adviser, Ejikeme Ugwu, and Director Political Matters, Comrade Maxwel Okoye in Owerri, the Imo State capital, noted that suspending a key stakeholder of the party like Okorocha, “did not speak well of the NWC and the Oshiomhole”.
The group consequently threatened to embark on legal and mass action if the NWC of the party did not comply with the ultimatum by quashing the suspension.
The Committee also made a case for the zoning of the Senate Presidency to the Southeast in view of the enormous support and the votes garnered by President Muhammadu Buhari from the zone in the February 23 Presidential election.
They further observed that “the suspension is an orchestrated agenda to deny the Igbo presidency in 2023, knowing that Okorocha is one of the major contenders”.
According to the Committee, “Okorocha’s suspension came to us as a rude shock. There is no way a cabal can suspend a major financier of the party. We give the NWC and the National Chairman 48 hours to reverse the suspension without delay or else we will resort to legal and mass action against the leadership of the APC. The suspension is aimed at disorganising Igbo ahead of 2023. Oshiomhole cannot wake up and suspend a major financier of the party. We plead with Buhari not to allow some few individuals to rubbish his friends because we know that Okorocha is a good friend of the President.
The PSC, while congratulating Buhari on his victory at the February 23 polls, expressed happiness with the outcome, saying that “the results reflected the wishes of Nigerians, especially the people at Southeast as the President garnered more votes from the region in 2019 than in 2015”.
They said, “We are happy with the results of the Presidential and National Assembly election as APC now has two senators, Okorocha and Orji Uzor Kalu. We are also happy with the votes the president got from the South East. The president got 400, 000 more votes in 2019 than in 2015, while the Peoples Democratic Party lost about 100,000 votes. The presidential support committee worked tirelessly to ensure that the president got enough votes.
