By Special Correspondent
Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma has assured his key allies of his readiness to win the November 11th governorship election in the State, with or without the support of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Addressing an exclusive meeting last weekend with key operatives of the CampHope Team in Imo State Government House, Owerri, the governor decried that some of his opponents in the coming election have chosen to block his access to the Presidential Villa by sponsoring all manners of “falsehood” against him, in order to spoil his relationship with the President.
According to the governor; “These people who said they want to be governor think they can only be governor by spoiling my name before the President and the President’s Chief of Staff, but they forgot that there was Hope Uzodimma before there became Tinubu. I have been an election winning machine before Tinubu and I will always win any election with or without Tinubu. We are only trying to give him the respect that is due to him, not because there is anything special about him.” The governor allegedly boasted.
He revealed to the team that, but for the last minute blackmail by the Tinubu camp which made former President Muhammadu Buhari to develop cold feet in their original plan of installing Senator Lawan as President, that Tinubu wouldn’t have been President. He boasted that even after Buhari had slacked from his support for Lawan, he would have gone ahead to install Lawan as the Party’s presidential candidate had Tinubu not come begging him.
“Those who waste their money trying to block my access to the President should ask the same President if he didn’t come on his knees begging for my support before the APC primaries. He knows that as the Chairman of the Election Management Committee of the convention, I had the capacity to turn that election whichever way I wanted. But, they knelt down and begged me, and I allowed things to go the way it went. Even in the main general election, do they bother to know who brought the template with which the election was rigged on behalf of Tinubu? Who raised the logistics, who drew the plans? My people, just don’t bother yourself, I can assure you that as long as November 11th election is concerned, it’s a forgotten matter. We have already won.”
He warned the leaders not to divert funds meant for the local Party executives, threatening to replace any leader who fails to deliver his ward.
“I have released One Million Naira to each autonomous community to organise their communities for the election and I am hearing that some leaders are taking some money out of that. I will not allow that to happen. I have given all of you a lot of money and I will still give you more, but this one that is meant for the autonomous community leadership, wards and booth armies, you must make sure, you deliver it, completely to them without removing a dime.”
Our source in the meeting said that the leaders were better reassured of the governor’s second term chance after the meeting as they were really concerned about the governor’s seeming alienation from the presidency since Tinubu’s inauguration.
“Onwa (Uzodimma’s alias) used to sleep and eat in Aso Rock when Buhari was there, but since Tinubu took over power, we heard that former Speaker Gbajabiamila has been blocking him from enjoying such access to the President. But we are happy that he can win without the President.”
