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From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), South East, Dr Arodiogbu Ijeomah, has said that Governor Hope Uzodimma remains the chairman of the party’s Progressive Governors Forum in the South East despite the calls by the former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, Chief Osita Okechukwu, to remove him.
Okechukwu had made public call for Uzodinmma to be removed following the fallout of the Edo State APC primaries.
But the Zonal leadership of the party in the South East denounced the call, describing statements credited to Okechukwu as that of a “rabid dog.”
Arodiogbu wondered where the Uzodimma had erred in the discharge of his duties as the Chairman of the Edo APC Primaries Committee for the 2024 State guber elections that would warrant Okechukwu to cast aspersions on him.
He, however, described Okechukwu as a failed politician who was envious of the laudable achievements of Governor Uzodimma both as governor and chairman of the PGF.
His words: “As the National Vice Chairman of the party for the zone, I must frown at the penchant for certain elements to openly cast aspersions on our leaders in the party. While I understand that this is a democracy and in a democracy there must be disagreements between persons, such disagreements must stem on how to grow the party in the zone and not the pull-him-down syndrome recently exhibited by a number of failed politicians such as the likes of Osita Okechukwu.
“It is worrisome that the likes of Okechukwu, who have never won an election either in his polling booth or in his ward will turn around and throw careless words against the leadership of Senator Uzodinma.
“What crimes or misdeeds did Governor Uzodinma commit in the discharge of his duties as Chairman of the Edo State Primary Committee? When did the declaration of a Personal Assistant to someone who naturally shouldn’t be a member of the National Working Committee override that of the Chairman of a committee set up by the party?
“Osita Okechukwu even went on to accuse Governor Uzodimma who was never near the collation centre chaired by Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State in Anambra during the 2021 primaries for the party’s failure in Anambra.
“This is laughable, even at that, what of the party’s successes in the region? Today the party at the states within the zone is being run by real politicians and not those who are APC in the day and another thing else at night. Today the party is flourishing within the nooks and crannies of the zone. This wasn’t the case before Governor Hope Uzodimma assumed leadership of the zone a few years ago.”
