By Joshua Omoloye, Abuja
Former governor of of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha has warned his party, the All Progressive Congress (APC) not to go into the March 26 national convention without resolving lingering crisis rocking the party at national and state levels.
He warned of huge cost that might be incuted from pending litigations after the convention which may weigh down the party. The senator representing Imo West senatorial district spoke with Senate correspondents after plenary on Tuesday.
Okorocha who proffered solutions to the lingering crisis said “if we go into Election at this time and of course it will open a pandora of litigations because where 1000 people buy nominations form, APC can make an income of N2 billion on sales of forms and after that, APC can spend N3 billion on litigations”.
Senator Rochas Okorocha said leaders of the founding legacy parties should have a round table to decide who gets what position in the new executive to be formed at the convention.
He said President Muhammadu Buhari, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, and himself, who are leaders of the legacy parties that formed APC should be allowed to decide sharing of executive positions.
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Okorocha said while President Muhammadu Buhari as the leader of the CPC block should be given the honour of deciding who becomes the next National Chairman of the party , others like Senator Bola Tinubu of the defunct ACN block , Ogbonnaya Onu of the defunct ANPP block , himself as leader of the APGA faction then, should also be honoured of deciding National Secretary and other important positions .
He said, “our party is a great party, APC is a great party, what is wrong with our party is that we have forgotten how we all started, we should not make the mistake of PDP of the old and I think that will be corrected with the party’s Convention now slated for March 26 , 2022.
“What we need to do is to go back to basis so that we adhere to the culture of Unity and equity the party was known for at formation in 2013.
“There were four political parties that formed APC. CPC led by the former Head of States, Mohammadu Buhari who is now the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu came with (ACN) , Governor Abdulaziz Yari , Senator Alimodu Sheriff (SAS) and Former governnor of Ebonyi state, Ogbona Onu who is now Minister of Science and Technology and Rochas Okorocha leading the APGA.
“Our initial position was that all positions would be shared among these four parties and DPP that came with few members and after the merger, the new PDP joined.
“Now, the wisest thing for all of us to do is to go back to the founding basis and distribute the political positions as we did it that time and there will be no rancor and it will be very peaceful.
“The father of the party now is President Muhammadu Buhari who should be given that respect to pick the person that will hold Sensitive position in the party as Chairman, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu should always be made to produce some key positions in the party and the other parties and should also be made to have positions and when this is done there will be no problem in APC.
“So the wise thing to do is to call the founding fathers of the party and give them key positions and carry everyone along , including the new people that joined the party.”
