A clearer picture of what would be of the Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha in 2015, is beginning to emerge as the State Deputy Governor; Prince Eze Madumere unveils the presidential ambition of the present number one citizen of the state.
Prince Madumere who rose in political rank from his Chief of Staff to the Governor position to Deputy Governor, kick started Okorocha’s ambition at a press briefing in Abuja.
According to the Deputy Governor, Okorocha may not seek a second term in office as he is warming up to run for the presidency in 2015.
While confirming the presidential ambition of the Imo State Governor, Madumere stated that it is no longer a secret affair that Owelle Okorocha will run for President in 2015, “I can tell you it is no secret. As I speak to you it has not left his mind. His Excellency, (Okorocha) will like to take another shot at the presidency having ran one of the last races towards Aso Villa in 2002/2003 and 2007 of course as a Nigerian, he has every right to run for any office. Whether he operates from APGA or APC, it does not matter; he can only follow the trail.”
He expressed optimism that the merging political parties have the capacity to win the 2015 general election, saying, “What constitutes the electoral college of this nation are the north-west and south-west. But if you look at the Electoral College in the north, they brought the ANPP and the CPC. Whether you like it or not, the CPC will stay. When you go to the west, we have the ACN.”
Madumere explained that PDP has not made any political impact in the south-east, stating that the poor performance of the party in the zone had made it less attractive.
“When you go to the south-east, the PDP has made the area politically useless. All the promises the president made prior to his election, not one of them has been kept. Now, who are people looking up to keep all these promises? That man is Rochas Okorocha,” he added.
On the criticism by the PDP Imo State chapter that the APGA-led administration under Okorocha has no concrete projects to show for the funds it has received, Madumere dismissed it as one done in bad faith.
“Well, in Imo, it is the more you look, the more you see. We do not engage in trickery, because with us it is whatever you see that you get. Labaran Maku is the Minister of Information. During his Good Governance Tour, if you heard him, he said in Abuja, they told him that ‘Imo is not working, Imo is not working’, but Imo is working! He said it, but some people were not happy that he did.
“However, he was confessing to what he was seeing on the ground. Not everything the governor has done was done by the people in Abuja, because if it were left to them alone, he would not be governor of Imo State. He was elected by the common people of Imo State, not those in Abuja.
“Other states award contracts every month, but we don’t do that, because we have done all that before now. We are in the process of consolidation at present. We make futuristic budgets every year and control our recurrent expenditure.
“Today, I stand to say that there is no government in Imo State which left an abandoned project that has not been completed by us, except the flyover at Amakohia-Akwakuma.
“So when people say these things, I laugh, because I
