Uzodimma: No reason APC won’t win in 2023… Buhari is performing well

Hope Uzodimma, governor of Imo, says there is no reason the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not be voted back to power since the present administration is “performing well”.

The Imo governor spoke with state house correspondents on Tuesday after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa.

According to him, the APC has also witnessed a significant increase in its membership in recent times.

“What is the prevailing situation that will make APC not win? Is it that you don’t know that 22 states in the country belong to APC?” he asked.

“Is it that you don’t know that out of the 774 local government areas in the country, that the APC is controlling the majority? Have you not seen the number of people decamping into the APC?

“The mood of the country is that the president is doing very well given the peculiarity of the times when insecurity has taken over the globe, where COVID-19 has ravaged every place in the world from one variant to another variant, yet we are able to come out from recession.

“So, I’m very confident. I’m a proud member of the APC and I think we’ll do our best to ensure that the confidence reposed in the party by Nigerians is not betrayed.”

He also said the decision to challenge the victory of Chukwuma Soludo in the Anambra governorship election will be determined by the leadership of the APC.

Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), secured 112,229 votes to defeat his two major rivals — Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who got 53,807 votes, and Andy Uba of the APC who secured 43,285 votes.

But Uba had rejected the results of the election, saying he will reclaim his “stolen mandate” at the court.

Uzodimma, who is the chairman of the APC campaign council for the Anambra election, said the fact that the president had congratulated Soludo will not influence the decision to be taken by the leadership of the party and its candidate.

“Andy Uba’s going to court or not going to court has nothing to do with Mr. President,” he said.

“The same electoral act that allows INEC to declare results of an election, also allows aggrieved candidates to seek for redress in court, if they so desire. But every other thing will be the decision taken by the candidate and the party.”

He added that the purpose of his visit was to discuss the security challenges in the south-east with the president.

“The prominent among the issues is just the increasing insecurity in the south-east. I know that despite the activities of the bandits and unknown gunmen, recall that the correctional facility in Owerri was broken into and over 1,836 inmates were released,” he said.

“Since that time, they’ve been on a rampage, committing all sorts of crimes and there is a need for us to really clean up the state.

“We asked for support with additional manpower and also, I asked for some kind of funding to support the security situation in Imo state and Mr President graciously approved.”