The former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Anayo Okorocha, on Tuesday expressed fear that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) would face multiple litigation after the rescheduled National Convention of the party.
He said the APC has unfortunately forgotten how it started and was making the mistake of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), expressing the belief that the National Convention will be an opportunity to correct their mistakes, if they listen to somebody like him.
Speaking on Tuesday on the state of the APC after plenary at the National Assembly, Okorocha, who represents Imo West, lamented that the travails of the party, if not carefully handled, would consume it.
He advised on the wisest step to take to avoid aspirants to the various offices buying nomination and expression of interest forms that would eventually railroad the party into litigations that it can’t come out.
He insisted that if the party generated enough income through sales of forms during the rescheduled convention, the fund would be expended in the courts.
Okorocha said: “It will open a pandora of litigation because where 1000 people buy nomination forms, APC can make an income of N2 billion on sales of forms and after that APC can spend N3 billion on litigation activities.
“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.
“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 old and I think that will be corrected with the party’s Convention.
“What we need to do is to go back to basis so that we carry the culture of unity, defeating of a sitting government that is not a small victory.”
Going through the historical antecedent of the party, he continued: “There are four parties that formed CPC led by the former Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari who is now the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu came with ACN, Governor Abdulaziz Yari, Ogbona, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff (SAS) and former governor of Ebonyi state, Ogbonnaya Onu who is now Minister of Science and Technology and Rochas Okorocha leading the APGA.
“Our initial position was that all parties position will be shared among these four parties and DPP that came with few never and after the merger, the new PDP joined.
“Now the wisest thing for all of us to do is to go back to the foundation and distribute the political positions as we did it that time and there will be no rancour and it will be very peaceful.
“The father of the party now is President Muhammadu Buhari. Buhari 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 position 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.”
