By STAN OKEKE

IMO State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, who is currently leading the operation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to stop the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the Anambra governorship election, in a few national dailies on Tuesday, September 10, 2013 posited that he had forgiven the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, for what he termed Umeh’s antagonism and blackmail against him.

Apart from that Okorocha went further to make some sarcastic comments that suggested that Umeh was leaking his wounds for losing some phantom APGA chairmen to the APC. As a matter of fact, Okorocha said, among other unfortunate utterances that Umeh’s reaction was predictable since he lost dozens of state chairmen to APC and his source of livelihood.

This is laughable and most unfortunate. Basically, my intention here is merely to put the records straight for posterity and the good people of Nigeria to judge. Owelle Rochas Okorocha claimed that 22 state chairmen of APGA decamped to APC.

Okorocha, in jumping ship to APC, tried to give the impression that he got to office of governor of Imo state on his personal capacity. But the APGA national chairman said, ‘no, APGA provided you the platform and structure with which you got to office.’  These are perhaps, Umeh’s sins against Governor. Okorocha.

These were all statements of fact but the Imo State Governor, instead of seeing and stating the facts as they are, resorted to propaganda and falsehood.

On the issue of 22 APGA state chairmen declaring for APC, Chief Umeh had long put the records straight, stating categorically that no such thing ever happened.

He explained that it was five redundant state chairmen from Lagos, Cross River, Niger, Kogi and Taraba states that joined the APC.

This claim by Okorocha, the APGA national chairman stated, was at best, politics of propaganda and falsehood. We also know that these so called chairmen have names and their various states of origin. Can the APC and Governor. Okorocha publish these names for scrutiny and verification? Okorocha also talked about source of income; for whom? One is really at loss as to what he meant by that.

Was he implying that the non-existent state chairmen were Chief Umeh’s source of income? What an insult, and coming from someone who should know better. We cannot at this age, degenerate to this level of slimy and dirty politicking.

Governor Okorocha, for the records, is the greatest beneficiary of Umeh’s political benevolence. Even with his political antecedents, Umeh still afforded Owelle Rochas Okorocha, the best political opportunity of his life, by offering him the APGA platform to run as governorship candidate in Imo State.

Even in 2011, when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ordered for a supplementary governorship election in Imo State, Rochas Okorocha headed to court, to stop the supplementary poll. It was the same Chief Umeh that Okorocha is castigating today, who overruled Okorocha and disassociated APGA from the lawsuit and insisted that APGA would participate in the supplementary poll and forced Okorocha into the supplementary election.

Had the court stopped the supplementary election, Chief Ikedi Ohakim would have been the governor of Imo State today and not Okorocha. The same Umeh, as national chairman of APGA, worked as the polling agent for APGA/Okorocha at the supplementary poll in Mbaitoli Local Government Area, which was considered a difficult Local Government Area, returning 24,700 votes for APGA, against PDP’s 12,278 votes and at the same time, protecting the victory of the APGA House of Assembly candidate for Mbaitoli LGA, Hon. Victor Chidi Ndunagu.

Indeed, Okorocha has forgotten how he secured victory in the 2011 governorship election in Imo State.

At the time this happened, Chief Umeh received numerous phone calls, warning him of the political and other consequences of admitting Okorocha into the APGA family. This was as a result of Okorocha’s betrayal of the other parties he had been with, including PDP and the defunct ANPP. Obviously, Chief Umeh is now paying the price of that misplaced trust and belief that Okorocha had turned a new political leaf.

It is also on record that when the Imo governor lost the PDP ticket for the Imo gubernatorial race in 2011, he moved from one political party to another, seeking their platform to run the race, until he berthed at APGA where he profusely pleaded with Umeh for the APGA ticket to run for the Imo governorship race. In Okorocha’s desperate bid to take advantage of APGA’s electoral goodwill in Imo State, he attacked the State secretariat of APGA with hired thugs, when the party leaders were resisting his late entry into the party, earning an expulsion from the party, by the State Executive Committee.

It was Chief Umeh who overruled his expulsion and afforded him the opportunity to continue in the race for APGA ticket, and subsequently resolved the issue between him and Chief Martin Agbaso in a round table dialogue that eventually gave him the opportunity to fly the APGA flag in Imo State which eventually gave him victory. He got all these on a platter and has today forgotten history.

Let it also be said for the records that Gov. Okorocha won his first ever political battle on APGA platform and ordinarily, this is a party he should remain eternally grateful to, for helping him achieve his life ambition to occupy such an office in his political career.

Umeh, in all his reactions to Okorocha’s betrayal of trust, had addressed issues and stated facts about recent developments in the Imo state governorship stool. He never said anything that is unfamiliar or not well known to Nigerians about Okorocha’s political journey, nor did he lie against him. So, where is the blackmail or antagonism?

But it is instructive that the Imo State Governor has only realized now that he is a nationalist after he won his first ever election on APGA platform, which he now brands a sectional party, and that remaining in APGA would not take Ndigbo to the Promised Land. It is unfortunate that Okorocha is not able to distinguish between personal ambition and collective interest of Ndigbo.

Okorocha has forgotten that he was once a member of the PDP and ANPP, which he considered to be national parties and achieved nothing in both of them. Time will however tell. And what is the guarantee today that he would achieve anything in APC which he considers a national party?

Obviously, the 2015 general elections will prove on whose side of the coin, the good people of Imo state, and the entire South-East stand.

*Stan Okeke, Special Assistant (Media) to the National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Umeh, wrote from Awka.