TheCable

Rochas Okorocha, governor of Imo state, says those who claimed to have caged him can only do so in the office of John Oyegun, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

On Thursday Theo Ekechi, a former commissioner in the state, said stakeholders of APC in the state had made Okorocha irrelevant.

“There has been wide jubilation in Imo because we have rescued the party from Okorocha. We have made it impossible for him to get help from anywhere. He cannot run to any political figure in the state because none is with him, he cannot approach any clergyman in the state. In his desperation, he ran to Sokoto, Daura and even to the vice-president, but help has refused to come,” Ekechi had said after a meeting with the leadership of the party in Abuja.

But in a statement issued on his behalf by Sam Onwuemedo, his media aide, the governor accused Oyegun of working with his opponents.

He said Oyegun had turned against him because he kicked against the elongation of his tenure.

Okorocha asked his opponents in Imo to allow congresses to hold in the state rather than go to Abuja to manipulate the process.

“The so-called Imo stakeholders can only cage governor Rochas Okorocha like they have claimed in the media in the offices of the national chairman of the party, chief John Oyegun and the national organising secretary of the party, chief Osita Izunaso, who are on vendetta mission against the governor over his innocent and patriotic stand on the issue of tenure elongation,” the statement read.

“And in any case, only ingrates can claim caging the man God used to uplift them politically. All those in the insolvent group called coalition are all beneficiaries of Okorocha’s political successes in Imo.”