… Says he won’t leave party for Gov Okoroacha

Iheanacho Nwosu, Abuja

A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ifeanyi Araraume has said the party would sweep the polls in the South East in next year’s general elections.

  He declared that APC had been wholly accepted by the zone and dismissed claims that any other party has an edge over the governing party in the zone.

  Araraume, a former chairman of Southern Senators’ Forum (SSF) and governorship candidate in Imo State, described as laughable reports that he was mulling defecting to another party. He insisted that he would not leave APC for the state Governor, Rochas Okorocha.

In a statement issued in Abuja, yesterday, Araraume re-affirmed his absolute loyalty to the party and President Muhammadu Buhari. He stated that he and other leaders of the party in the South East were working hard to deliver the zone during next year’s election.

  He accused those spreading the rumor of his purported plan to quit the party as being afraid and worried that they had lost control of the party’s structures. He contended that such people now resort to “falsehood and dirty propaganda” to discredit him.

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  Outlining his agenda for Imo APC, Araraume disclosed that his focus at the moment was primarily to re-organise the party and rekindle the hope of members. He added that members of the party must be made to know and accept that President Buhari means well for the country.

He claimed that though Imo indigenes might not be happy with some policies of the state government, APC would still win the state in 2019.

  He said: “I am one of the founders of APC; it is my party and I am very much rooted in it both at the national, zonal and state levels. They are afraid that I am very strong in the party at the grassroots, state and national levels.

“We currently have a state government that does not respect the manifesto of the party and the rule of law; that does not believe that the party matters, and that those who worked for the success of the party should be carried along. 

“So, this government must go. The proper APC government must come on board in Imo State in 2019. As a matter of fact, our people are already looking beyond the current government in the state.

“We have to fight this bad and ineffectual Imo State government to a standstill. That is why some of them are worried and have already started talking to Social Democratic Party (SDP), All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and other parties, while some are trying to revive the Action Alliance (AA). But we will defeat them wherever they go. Where am I leaving the party to?”

Araraume added: “We have come to stay and we will rather drive these people who are working against our party out because they are the impostors in the party. Don’t also forget that I was the pioneer state chairman of APP in Imo in 1998. “Therefore, I am part of the legacy party that became the APC. Some of them, such as Okorocha, came into the APC alone from APGA, because APGA is still a party. They are already worried and jittery.”