A former governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, said on Sunday the All Progressives Congress (APC) defeat in the Edo State governorship election was the citizens’ revolution against injustice.
The ex-governor, who disclosed this in a chat with journalists, said the APC members’ respect for President Muhammadu Buhari was the reason the party was still intact.
He warned of possible implosion in the party if the leadership failed to address some issues threatening its sustenance.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday declared Governor Godwin Obaseki as winner of the Edo State governorship election held on Saturday.
Okorocha said: “If the report I am getting from Edo is not quite interesting when injustice comes into a matter, the centre can no longer hold and that is the problem of the party. I forewarned about what is happening today in our party and if the result in Edo comes out and PDP wins, it means we don’t have APC in the South-South. That is a bad sign.
“In the South East, literally we can say we don’t have APC, we just managed through the Ben Johnson way to get one state and that does not make our image good.
“The same party under the leadership of a president, a man we considered a clean man, an honest man, a patriotic man and these are happening, that means it is unfortunate.
“The truth is, what I have been talking about has come to play. If PDP wins in Edo, I will not congratulate the PDP, I will congratulate the Edo people. I congratulate them for standing up against injustice because the people that voted for Obaseki are not only PDP, even people in the APC voted for him.
“They want to stand up for injustice, Edo people are not docile, they know what they want and how they want it.”
On the current state of the party, the ex-governor insisted that respect for President Buhari was the only reason APC was still existing.
He said the APC died the day the leadership abandoned the progressive and democratic ideals on which it was founded.
He alleged that apart from President Buhari, the other leaders of the political blocks that merged to form the party in 2015 were practically schemed out by forces that joined the party.
Okorocha added: “Just permit me to give you the inside of APC, this word APC was formed by four major political parties that had governors, one was the CPC led by President Muhamamadu Buhari, ACN led by Ahmed Tinubu, ANPP led by Ogbonnaya Onu brought their structure and APGA led by me brought in our structure.
“Every other person fell into this structure. The PDP group came in and joined us. I gave the name APC, I designed that logo and that was the beginning of the party and we had an understanding.
“That is the party you call APC and unless we go back to where it all started, APC can never see the light of the day and that was how we started and that was what brought President Muhamamadu Buhari to office.
“You cannot rule out the role of these four key people, the then CPC has only one governor in Nasarawa, APGA had only one governor, ACN came with the chunk of the governors and ANPP had a few. And we shared the first positions equally among these four parties.
“Now the founding fathers of the party are relegated to the backgrounds and people are coming with different interests making us play the same kind of politics that PDP played.
“There is no more APC, what we have is the respect for President Mohammed Buhari, that is what is keeping us together. What we have is our respect for the person of President Mohammadu Buhari and we still believe that something can be done.”
