APC BoT member, Apugo backs Peter Obi, Alex Otti in February election

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

An All Progressives Congress (APC) Board of Trustees (BoT) and the National Caucus member from Abia state, Chief Ochiagha Benjamin Apugo, has foretold that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and the party’s governorship candidate in Abia, Alex Otti will win the State in the forthcoming general elections.

Apugo stated this in a press statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Sunday. In the statement, he dissociated himself from a report that linked him with the endorsement of the candidate of the APC in Abia state, Chief Ikechi Emenike.

Apugo further explained that he was not supporting any political party in the 2023 general elections but individuals with a track road of performance.

He said “Chief Ikechi Emenike and his team paid me a courtesy visit as a Chieftain of the party to inform me of his governorship ambition as well as the proposed visit of the APC Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to Umuahia, Abia state.

“I emphatically told Emenike that the APC would lose both the Abia governorship and Presidential elections, and restated my uncompromising support for the Labour Party governorship candidate in Abia state, Dr. Alex Otti and its Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi.

“APC will fail woefully in Abia State. PDP is already dead. I am supporting Otti. I didn’t endorse him (Emenike). I told him that APC will not win because there is nothing to show APC people. So, forget about endorsement.”

Giving reasons for supporting Obi and Otti, Apugo said ” If you check my political history, you would discover that I have always associated with people of high moral standing and integrity, hence my support for Otti whom I believe will develop this land when he becomes governor”.

Apugo said it would not be politically reasonable to support a party that could not fix the strategic Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road and the Umuahia-Ohafia-Aro chukwu road respectively, maintaining that both the APC and the PDP have failed Abians and should be roundly rejected.

The elder statesman, widely respected for his candour and firm stance on critical national and state issues, insisted that Otti was the only outstanding personality in the Abia governorship race with proven capacity and passion to develop the state, stressing that though he was a member of BOT and National Caucus of the APC, the development of Abia, including Ibeku land was of paramount importance hence his decision to support the former managing director of Diamond Bank.

He also vehemently refuted the idea of anti-party when reminded about that.

“What is anti-party? What I am telling you is the correct thing. They haven’t done anything here. I am saying it with annoyance. With the position that I held in APC, nothing. I am not talking about myself. I have not gotten even one contract from them. No employment for one single person since 8 years. So, what are you talking about anti-party? They know that what I am talking is the correct thing. They have not done anything to my people here. They didn’t do one single thing here in my home town which is the capital of Abia State. No federal presence”, he said.