The desire of the Imo State Governor to conduct a Mock Primaries to select candidates for various election positions before the party primaries of the State chapter of the APC is receiving knocks from party members.
Reports have it that governor Rochas Okorocha, as usual will adopt the unfancied mock primaries to select candidates for elective position.
It would be recalled that before the members of the Local Government Area, LGA Transition Committee were picked, mock primaries to test popularity and acceptance in the public were conducted. Similar procedures were also adopted in choosing some traditional rulers where trouble erupted in the communities over choice of Eze.
Trumpeta also gathered on good authority that the choice of his would be anointed successor for the 2019 election in APC will emerge through the mock primaries process.
Apparently irked by the reports and aware that Okorocha would at the end go for mock primaries, strong elements in Imo State chapter of APC have declared that the exercise will be null and void if applied, as APC is a registered political party with a constitution that has no section to support or provide the purported mock primaries.
This newspaper gathered in good authority that top APC leaders in Imo who for obvious reasons do not want to be mentioned, have been meeting with a view to not only protest against it but also enlighten the public to reject it totally.
A top APC Chieftain who through Agunwa Emeka Nzeribe in a statement on behalf of Imo APC stakeholders opposed to the mock primaries disclosed that “ in the Nigerian Electoral Act that was passed by National Assembly for purposes of elections and electioneering campaigns, there is no section of it that support the purported “Mock Primaries which Gov Okorocha wants to embark on”.
“Imo State is an integral part of Nigeria and as such should not be seen as acting against the provisions of the constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, or constitution of APC as the case may be”
While asking Imolites, especially, APC members of Imo State chapter, to disregard this plan by the governor of the state or his proxies as such action runs ultra vires to relevant laws of the land. The Imo APC stakeholder disclosed that the purported mock primaries is another gimmick to legalize illegality in the State, and a desperate bid to foist an unpopular candidate in the party and people of the State.
“It’s disheartening to note that a governor that swore to defend the constitution of Nigeria and by extension, the constitution of the political party that sponsored him is the same person planning its murder”, it added.
