APC suspends Okorocha for anti-party activities

The Imo State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has suspended Governor Rochas Okorocha for anti-party activities.

The suspension was announced on Thursday, January 17, 2019, after a Matthew Omegara-led disciplinary committee investigated the governor and six others for alleged anti-party activities.

The governor has long been at loggerheads with the party's state and national executives over his choice of his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, as his successor with his second term tenure set to end in May.

The governor lost the bid to install Nwosu as the APC candidate, losing the party's ticket to Senator Hope Uzodinma. Uzodinma's victory forced Nwosu out of the party to the Action Alliance (AA) where he's contesting in the March 2 governorship election.

Despite being a Senatorial candidate on the platform of the APC for National Assembly election, Okorocha has publicly denounced Uzodinma's candidacy several times and boasted that Nwosu will beat him at the polls.

The chairman of the APC Imo State caretaker committee, Marcellinus Nlemigbo, said Okorocha's continued support of Nwosu to win over the APC's flag bearer is a clear violation of its constitution. The disciplinary committee found Okorocha guilty of sponsoring, financing and campaigning for Nwosu, who was also his Chief of Staff until recently.

Nlemigbo disclosed on Thursday that the committee has written to the national working committee, headed by national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, to expel Governor Okorocha from the party.

"To save the party from the machinations of Governor Rochas Okorocha, our state Caretaker Committee highly recommends the expulsion of the governor from the APC so that he can fully move to his party, the Action Alliance," he said.

Oshiomhole and Okorocha have been engaged in a war of words in public over the issue as the governor accused the party chieftain of taking bribe to seal Uzodinma's victory in the contentious primary elections last year.