Politics:" i want to run for 2015 elections ", rochas okorocha

…Says “My Candidature’ll Bring Victory For APC”

Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State yesterday revealed that he is considering giving a shot at the presidency of Nigeria in 2015.

He quickly said however that there was a lot of pressure on him from the people of the state to continue to serve them beyond 2015 as governor.

Okorocha, who spoke at a breakfast meeting with journalists at the state government house, Owerri, said there was more pressure from people for him to contest for the presidential seat of the country in 2015.

The governor said he was sure he would bring victory for his party if he contested for the next year’s presidential election because according to him, he had performed better with the little resources available to him in the last three years than most of the governors in the state with huger allocations.

He said in the last three years, his government had only received N179 billion from the federal allocation, while the federal government, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Delta and Lagos States received N13.1 trillion, N1.8 trillion, N1.1 trillion and N656 billion respectively within the same period and yet, his administration was always being compared with them in term of performance.

Despite the meager financial resources available, the governor said his administration was nearly completing the dualisation of Owerri—Orlu—Akokwa Road worth over N25 billion with other equally very important roads within the city centre and still keeping faith with the full implementation of the free education programme.

He said what he had done on road projects alone was enough to justify the money he had received so far from federal allocation, adding that only few governors in the country had done what he was doing in terms of paying the gratuities, retirement benefits and pension of retirees.

The governor added that his administration was building two universities and two polytechnics at the same time and had opened more cities in the state than had done in any other state with the opening up of Aka City, Akokwa City, Anara and Amaraku cities and others, adding that no five best government houses in Nigeria could be counted without Imo coming tops.

He said his greatest achievement to the state was the re-introduction of palm farming among the people of the state, saying poverty would vanish from the state if the people would fully embrace it.

Okorocha stated that he would only want someone from Imo State who is better than him to governor the state after him, adding that with all he had done in the state in the last three years, “if the Imo people can find a better governor than me, then I’ll hand over to continue”

He thanked journalists from the state for the criticisms he had received so far from them and urged them not to relent as that had made him perform better than he would have done without such criticism