Your Greed Denied Us Senate --Rochas Okorocha Tells Ndi Igbo

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has warned that lack of vision
on the part of political leaders from the South-East may deny the
region the opportunity to produce the next President of the Senate.

While addressing leaders of the APC and party supporters at the Imo
International Convention Centre in Owerri, Okorocha lamented that
despite the contributions of the Igbo to national development since
Independence, they had continued to lag behind in Nigerian politics
due to their leaders' selfishness.

He blamed the present situation on members of the Peoples Democratic
Party, whom he accused of stealing the mandate given to the candidates
of the All Progressives Congress in the 2015 National Assembly
election by the electorate.

The governor said, "It is very painful for the Igbo to lose the
position of the Senate President after they have been denied leading
positions in the country for a long time. We saw it coming and we told
our political leaders why Ndigbo should embrace the APC, but they did
not believe us.

"Now the story has changed. The PDP, which they have been following
all these years with nothing to show for it, is now an opposition
party."

Noting that there was no election in the South-East geopolitical zone
last week, the governor said Ndigbo still stood a chance of clinching
the position of Senate President.

"There was no election in the entire South-East on the March 28. The
PDP leaders, with the aid of the military and INEC officials,
intimidated and harassed our people and thereafter wrote the results
in their homes," he said.

He assured APC supporters and natives of Imo State that the party
would do everything necessary to recover the stolen mandate of its
candidates in the state.

Addressing the gathering, former Governor Ogbonnaya Onu of Anambra
State, who is also an APC stalwart, observed that with the emergence
of the APC in 2013, everything about Nigerian politics had changed and
would no longer be the same.

Onu believed that Nigeria had started moving forward and Ndigbo should
not continue to lag behind in the country's politics.

He added, "In the past, the people of the South-East put all their
political eggs in one basket. They were taken for granted. The things
that were of great importance to them were left undone. They gave
their very best to the PDP, but got little or nothing to show for it.
Ndigbo should embrace the APC and make it the number one party in the
zone.

"We need Nigeria as much as she needs us. We must be in the mainstream
of Nigerian politics. Our political home should be the APC. In the
last election, members of the APC were not treated fairly in the
South-East. They were harassed and intimidated by the PDP. In the end,
those who were rejected by the voters were declared winners."

Senator Chris Ngige, however, described the March 28 election as the
end of "bad election in the country."

He expressed satisfaction with the knowledge that the PDP's alleged
involvement in electoral irregularities in the South-East could not
stop its presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, from winning the
election.
--PUNCH