By Charles Igbo
For former two-term Governor of Imo State, and now, Senator representing Imo West Senatorial District, it is not only raining this week, it is pouring.
In a week during which he should have been happy, having declared his interest to run for the office of the President in 2023, everything is turning awry.
On January 31, 2022, the day he addressed what he termed a World Press Conference to declare his interest in the Presidential seat, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, corrupted his happiness.
The anti-graft Commission filed a 17-count charge against him and three others, in Court, alleging a corrupt enrichment to the tune of N2.7billion.
And just when he defended himself, told the World he is richer than Imo State, and that the State owes him a whopping sum of eight billion Naira, the Leadership of his Party, at the National level gave him an uppercut.
The action of the Party couldn’t have, also, come at a more inappropriate time than it did.
Okorocha had just gone to visit President Muhammadu Buhari to inform him of his desire to succeed him in office and, to, allegedly, report the EFCC to him.
The photo of his visit to the President, where the two of them stood, exchanging pleasantries, diminished any problems he was going through. Okorocha glowed in that photograph. But the leadership of the APC poured cold water on the charming photo-up by literally, rendering him ”Partyless”.
In Abuja on Thursday, February 3, the APC put a stamp of authority on Dr McDonald Ebere as the Chairman of the Imo APC. By doing that, it authenticated the Congresses held in the State which culminated in the emergence of a new State Executive led by Dr Ebere.
Okorocha and his group, which include Senator Ifeanyi Araraume and Ugwumba Uche Nwosu, Okorocha’s son-in-law, did not take part in the Congresses. They did not also take part in the revalidation exercise of their membership of the APC which was held in 2021.
They refused to recognize the leadership of the Party then in the State led by Chief Marcellinus Nlemigbo.
They said there was a subsisting Court Order which recognized Chief Dan Nwafor, Chairman of their own faction, as the authentic Chairman.
With the inauguration of the Ebere-led Executive, backed by Governor Hope Uzodinma, Okorocha and Company have lost out – unless a Court, on appeal, says otherwise.
The implication is that having not revalidated their memberships of the Party, unless given a special waiver, Okorocha, Araraume, Nwosu and their associates are no longer members of the APC.
Okorocha’s declared interest to run for the office of the President, also, goes down with it. He has no Party on which to run, and has little or no structure in the State.
However, Okorocha always has a Plan B. There are strong speculations that he may decamp to the Action Alliance, AA, a party which he, allegedly, sponsored while still an APC Governor, and on which platform his son-in-law, Nwosu, ran for the Governorship in 2019, after he lost the APC ticket to Uzodinma. There are also strong speculations that some of his associates are already in discussions with the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, for a defection to the main opposition Party in the State.
Whichever way it turns, for Okorocha, it is a long walk to whatever ambition he and his associates have at both the State and Federal levels. For him, it is not just raining, it is pouring, unless, a Court comes to his rescue.
