Daily Trust

Okorocha to Ihedioha: You are not yet a candidate

- From Johnkenned­y Uzoma Owerri

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has described the statement by the Deputy Speaker House of Representa­tives, Emeka Ihedioha, that he would defeat him in 2015 as the same claims made by other governorsh­ip aspirants in the state in the past.

Okorocha in a statement issued in Owerri yesterday by his senior special assistant on media, Sam Onwuemoedo, reminded Ihedioha that he is still an aspirant and not yet a candidate of his party saying he lacked the basis to make such a statement.

He said: “Ihedioha should have first claimed that he would defeat the other governorsh­ip aspirants in his party, including Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, Bethel Amadi, Senator Chris Anyanwu, Chief Humphery Anumudu, and others, in the PDP primary, before talking about who he would defeat in the 2015 guber election in the state.”

He reminded him that democracy is not a boxing or wrestling contest, but a civil exercise that warrants going to the poll to vote in a free and fair election while advising the PDP and its chieftains to learn how to delete certain undemocrat­ic vocabulari­es in their psyche, knowing full well that the nation’s democracy is growing.

He said that all the aspirants including Ihedioha were also together in 2011includ­ing himself when he came and subdued all of them to emerge triumphant.

He said: “They could not scratch me in 2011 when they had the “yam and the knife” concerning Imo governorsh­ip, is it in 2015 when I must have taken delivery of all the “political knives and yam” in Imo politics?”

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