Rochas Okorocha, Imo State governor and Chairman of the All Progressives Congress Governors’ Forum, has said the convention of the party will hold at a yet to be announced date with or without President Muhammadu Buhari.
Okorocha contradicted the earlier position of the party chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who had stated that the party’s convention will wait until President Buhari returns from London to also partake in it.
But the Imo governor said Acting President Yemi Osinbajo in his capacity would spearhead the convention just as the party stakeholders were still consulting to come up with an appropriate date.
Okorocha made these comments after the APC governors had a brief meeting with the acting president at the Presidential Villa on Thursday.
The meeting held immediately after the National Economic Council meeting also chaired by Acting President Osinbajo.
According to Okorocha, the ranting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), threatening to unseat the APC in 2019 holds no water, considering the fact that PDP was defeated while still in the saddle of leadership.
“We the APC governors we came to see the acting president and to talk about issues that relates to our party because people seem to have forgotten that the acting president and the president are members of APC, so we have come to discuss issues relating to our party and our government and how to move our party forward.
“A lot of issues were discussed on how to strengthen the party, to make sure that our party remains victorious in all elections.
“Very soon we will have convention. That is one of the subjects we discussed at the meeting.
“Delays in our convention has nothing to do with absence of Mr. President or the acting president, we are just putting our house in order to make sure that things are in the right form before we kick off.
“PDP is a non issue, we don’t even care about that we defeated them when they were in power so what threat do they pose when we are in power”.
It would be recalled that when APC governors and the NWC initially fixed April 29, 2017 for the mid-term convention, the convention was described as “non-elective”.
Some NWC members were said to be afraid of being replaced at the convention because of “alleged disloyalty” to their state governors.
The anxiety increased over reports that Chief John Odigie-Oyegun may be replaced at the convention especially as APC national leader, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had demanded his resignation following his reported face-off with him.
