Following the alleged early lead by the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Honourable Benjamin Uwajumogu in the ‘inconclusive’ Imo North rerun election held last Saturday, Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha has expressed confidence that the APC candidate will unseat the present deputy senate president, Ike Ekweremadu to ‘consumate’ the ruling party’s leadership of the National Assembly. Ekweremadu is of the opposition PDP.
Okorocha who stated this on Sunday while celebrating, with other supporters of the party, the presumed lead of the APC candidate and his likely victory, also described the current pairing of APC’s Senator Bukola Saraki and PDP’s Ekweremadu as President and Deputy Senate President respectively as an ‘aberration to the South East’.
He said: “The position of Senator Ike Ekweremadu as the Deputy Senate president is at the moment under heavy threat because in no distant time the APC Senator-in-waiting from Imo State, Benjamin Uwajumogu will take over the seat on the ground that it is an aberration that a PDP senator from the South-East is deputy to an APC Senate President because, before now, APC could not produce a senator from the South-East zone.”
Governor Okorocha further alleged that Senator Ekweremadu has been jittery over the outcome of the election, hence the Deputy Senate President’s alleged ‘undue’interest in the Imo North Senatorial rerun election in the state.
But, Ekweremadu’s office has reacted to Okorocha’s statement, describing it as coming from a man on “a wild goose chase”.
In a statement issued by the Special Adviser (Media) to the Ekweremadu, Uchechukwu Anichukwu, the Deputy President of the Senate’s Office said it would have “allowed the governor to continue to wallow in his delusions and wild claims, but, considering the fact that this is the second consecutive statement by the governor in one week wherein he attempted to impugn the integrity and democratic credentials of the Office and person of the Deputy President of the Senate, we are being compelled to set the record straight.”
Continuing, Mr. Anichukwu said: “The Deputy President of the Senate visited Imo State for the last time in 2015. It is also instructive that the governor’s claim comes on the heels of another statement by some All Progressives Congress (APC) elements in Ezeagu Local Government Area on Sunday where they whined bitterly over the huge solidarity shown by the good people, stakeholders, and traditional rulers of Enugu State to Senator Ekweremadu during his annual Ikeoha Scholarship and Bursary Awards/Adult Literacy Day at the Council headquarters on the same Saturday, June 23, 2016.
“For the same party to also claim that the same Ekweremadu who was empowering his people at Ezeagu in a well reported event on the same Saturday was also in in Imo State at the same time to influence election is just another showcase of the buffet of lies, deceit, and confusion that has become the order of the day in the ruling party”.
He advised Governor Okorocha and other APC leaders in the South East zone to “preoccupy themselves with ending the invasions and killings by purported herdsmen, gross marginalization of Ndigbo in the distribution of opportunities and the blessings of democracy as well as the worrisome trend of inconclusive elections”.
Mr. Anichukwu said Governor Okorocha’s statement also showed poor understanding of the workings of the legislature, noting that Ekweremadu was not perturbed in any way by the wishful prospects of an APC Senator of South East extraction.
“The Senate has a ranking rule, and if Okorocha was not able to secure a principal office, even Deputy Majority Whip for the two House of Representatives Members from Imo State, it is left to imagination how he would be able to appoint a Deputy President for the Senate. He is on a wild goose chase.”
Okorocha, however, insisted that APC in the South East and not PDP ought to produce the deputy senate president. Agonizing over the loss of the senatorial seats to the PDP in last year’s election, the Imo governor further declared: “All the National Assembly members from the state on the platform of PDP should be re-called to come and face proper election because none of them won election but they used their federal might and the security agencies to write results for themselves in the 2015 election. And now that sanity has been restored they should be made to come and face real election.”
The Imo State Chief Executive also noted that it has become part of the political culture of the state that every election must be declared inconclusive, adding that “there was no need for Saturday’s election to be declared inconclusive because of one ward (Osuachara) out of the 64 wards in the Okigwe Senatorial Zone with the APC candidate, leading his rival with more than eight thousand votes.”
Meanwhile, INEC has fixed Thursday July 28, for a supplementary poll following the inconclusive election in 15 polling units of Isiala Mbano and Oru East state constituency for the Imo North senatorial rerun election last Sunday.
In a release issued yesterday in Owerri and signed by the Returning Officer, Adelami Asade on behalf of the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Nasir Ayilara, INEC enjoined the parties concerned to collect necessary details for the election.
In another development, the Imo State Police Command has denied allegations in some quarters that the Imo North rerun election was declared inconclusive because it was marred by violence.
In a press statement issued by the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Andrew Enwerem, the police said although there were “a few skirmishes by some overzealous party supporters, the police were able to handle the situation because of the heavy presence of the police supervised by DIG Joshak Habila from the force headquarters and the state Commissioner of Police, Taiwo Lakanu.”
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
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Senate leadership: Okorocha threatens to unseat Ekweremadu
Senate leadership: Okorocha threatens to unseat Ekweremadu
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