Angered by what they described as the daylight robbery of their mandate given freely to Senator Hope Uzodimma, by an Abuja High Court, APC Chairmen of the 12 local governments that make up Imo West Senatorial zone on Friday reaffirmed their stand on the governor’s candidacy.
They also rejected the Abuja High Court ruling, which ordered INEC to publish the name of Senator Rochas Okorocha in the place of Uzodimma, saying the governor’s mandate remains sacrosanct.
“We reject this judgement in its entirety because it is an undisguised travesty of justice. It is a political robbery clothed in legal robes, the latest instalment of a satanic scheme hatched by Abuja politicians against the South-East,” they declared.
Addressing a world press conference in Owerri on Friday, the APC chairmen disclosed that as the people who were in the field on May 18th, 2026 when the APC primaries for Imo West Senatorial Zone was held, Rochas Okorocha scored only 1,098 votes as against 230,000 votes scored by Uzodimma who was declared the winner in the presence of INEC staff who monitored the exercise.
In the press conference text read on their behalf by the State Chairman of APC, Chief Austin Onyedebelu, the chairmen further averred that Okorocha never used the window provided by APC to petition the Appeal panel of party to complain of any irregularities only for him to head to the court to be handed over victory.
They noted that given the wild celebrations by Okorocha since Thursday when he procured the court order and his pronouncements that he got help from higher quarters outside the court, they were convinced that there is a conspiracy to shut Ndigbo out of political relevance in Nigeria.
According to them, “for the avoidance of doubt, we NEVER VOTED FOR ROCHAS OKOROCHA. This legal somersault orchestrated by enemies of Ndigbo was obviously procured not only to destabilise Orlu zone but to consolidate the war of attrition by some Nigerians to politically hold down the south east.”
The chairmen said they were enraged by the fact that people outside Igboland want to use Okorocha as an errand boy to supplant the wish of majority of APC members in Orlu zone who overwhelmingly voted Hope Uzodimma as their candidate.
“Our grievance lies with a small circle of power brokers who appear determined that no Igbo man shall come close to the first, second, or third positions in the land. We therefore appeal to President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR, whose leadership we support and will continue to support to look closely at the men behind this scheme,” they submitted.
They noted that while they remain loyal members of the APC, the party must quickly move in to resolve this “robbery” before it causes problems for it in the Southeast.
Describing Hope Uzodimma as the heartbeat of APC in the Southeast, the APC Chairmen reaffirmed their support for him and the mandate they gave him as their Senatorial candidate for the January 16th National Assembly elections.
They, however, expressed apprehension of what would happen should the judicial heist persist and pleaded with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu GCFR as the leader of the party to urgently intervene on the matter.
“While we hope and pray that this sinister action of enemies of Ndigbo will be quashed by the Appeal Court, we fear the backlash of this obnoxious attempt to deny the people of the South East their rightful political position of being at least the number three in Nigeria, something that has been denied us for almost 20 years”, they concluded.
