The planned nationwide state congresses of the All Progressives Congress, APC, scheduled to hold yesterday in the 36 states of the federation could not hold in ImoState as planned.
This followed the cancellation of the exercise by the state chairman of the congress organizing committee, which it was learnt had been in the state since Thursday.
In the announcement, which was aired on the state-owned radio station, Orient FM, the committee postponed the exercise to Tuesday, April 8, 2014, and did not give reason for the postponement.
But 247ureports.com learnt that unresolved issues such as lack of money for logistics, inability of Governor Rochas Okorocha and the party leadership to force the party members to harmonise the executive positions in all the local government areas of the state, etc, led to the cancellation of the congress.
According to an impeccable source from the APC, the governor could not fund the exercise and the acting chairman of the party, Prince Marshal Okaforanyanwu, could not also raise money for the congress because of the governor’s plan to replace him with a man from Mbaise in Owerri Zone. Okaforanyanwu hails from Oru East council area, same senatorial zone as Okorocha.
The Source, who pleaded anonymity, told 247ureports.com that the development led to the acting chairman not having interest in the affairs of the party anymore.
Apart from that, the source added “even as I’m talking to you now (Saturday morning), materials for the congress had not yet arrived the party office and the governor cares less about spending money to sort out these problems. Okay, check the last registration exercise in the state; he only brought out N2 million which is a far cry to what was actually needed to take care of the exercise. But somebody else (Okaforanyanwu) spent his personal resources to ensure we had a hitch-free exercise. Will he expect the same thing to happen again? I will say no because he has chosen his own party chairman without even consulting the man on the seat”.
Also speaking, another APC stalwart said, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the congress could not hold because some local government areas could not harmonise the positions to select one person as the party’s chairman in the affected areas.
The governor had last Sunday set up a nine-man APC local government harmonisation committee, headed by the deputy governor, to ensure every LGA had a harmonized APC executive.
But, this was said not have gone down well with the members, who preferred going to the field for election than foisting someone on them and as a result, there could not be accepted members from the affected areas for the congress.
Speaking with 247ureports.com, the acting state publicity secretary of the APC, Dr. Ifeanyi Ekenasi, attributed the cancellation of the congress to ‘unforseen circumstances and act of God”, saying it was not a big deal since it will still take place on Tuesday.
