Congresses to elect officials of the All Progressive Congress, APC, is expected to kick off on July 24, 2021, beginning with the conduct of ward congresses.
The congresses which will be held at the local government, state, zonal levels, up to the national convention, may re- open fresh political rivalry in the party in Imo State between three political gladiators- Governor Hope Uzodimma, Senators Rochas Okorocha and Ifeanyi Araraume.
For a long period, Imo APC has been taken over by the State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodimma, on the basis of being the leader of the party.
His loyalists occupy the party structure at all levels, shutting out those from the camp of Senator Rochas Okorocha and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume. The duo have been at logger heads with Uzodimma over the soul of the APC.
Several attempts in the past by Okorocha to take over the party structure has always crumbled, despite a subsisting court order brandished by the Daniel Nwafor faction, which the former governor is strongly aiding.
The Nwafor faction has continually claimed that Marcellinus Nlemigbo, the caretaker committee chairman of Imo APC,and ally of Governor Uzodimma, is an impostor and should not be parading himself as Chairman of the party in the State.
Okorocha and Araraume and their loyalists had kept away from activities of the APC, since Uzodimma became governor of the State. They had also stayed away from the party’s membership re-validation exercise which was concluded recently.
It is uncertain if they will take part in the forthcoming congresses, which analyst say may offer a battlefield, for the duo to jostle for the soul of the party with Uzodimma.
If they fail to do so, their fate and stay in the APC may hang in the balance and fuel suspicions that the duo may embark on a new political voyage to another political platform.
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