Adams Oshiomhole, National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, (APC) has condemned what he called brazen impunity in the Imo State gubernatorial primaries saying it was a network of bias and nepotism.
Oshiomhole spoke at the rally to launch the APC campaign in the state on Friday, insisting that the party’s gubernatorial candidate, Sen. Hope Uzodinma, would return Imo to the people and bring an end to government by a single family.
The incumbent governor, Rochas Okorocha, and the state Chairman of the APC, Dan Nwafor, were absent from the rally.
Oshiomhole stated that the days were gone when a governor would look at the faces of his people and say there was money to do other things besides pay those who were working for the government.
Oshiomhole said: “When you elect Senator Hope, appointment into government will be based on merit, not family connection. I’m assuring you that we have a candidate, whose purpose is to develop and bring prosperity to the Igbo young man, the Owerri young woman, the carpenter, the mechanic and, above all, my own comrades, the civil servants of Imo State who don’t know any longer what a payday looks like.
“When we talk of happiness, we will not domesticate it in the hands of a sister. The happiness of the great people of Imo State will be the primary purpose of government under Sen. Hope Uzodinma.” .
He added that due process will be the basis for constructing buildings and building roads.
“One contract will not be awarded to three people,” he said. “If it must be awarded, it will not be awarded to in-laws. It will be awarded to the genuine businessmen and women of Imo State.
“Never again will any of your governors look at your (traditional) leaders and abuse them because democracy is about people.
“Never again shall we govern on the basis of family connections. Whether you know somebody or you don’t, whether you marry from me or I don’t marry from you, that shall not be the basis for winning the next election,” he said.
Oshiomhole assured families with breadwinners and pensioners who had not been paid for six to nine months that “the bailout, which President Muhammadu Buhari had given governors, including the governor of Imo State, and was not used for that purpose, will be retrieved and our pensioners will smile again.”
He added, “Let me also say without fear of contradiction that those who are printing posters and putting President Buhari’s face on it with their face and logo because their face and party are unknown — those ones are fake.
“President Buhari has the APC as his party. He is our presidential candidate. He has adopted Sen. Hope Uzodinma as the governorship candidate.”
Earlier, Uzodinma assured the APC chairman that, at the end of the day, the party would be vindicated.
“We are not going to disappoint the people of Imo and we’ll have victory, five over five. I promise, in the name of the almighty God, it shall never be the same again. The Egyptians you are seeing today, you shall see no more,” he said.
