Chukwueke Dumps APC, Joins Guber Race

*Describes Okorocha’s administration as disgrace

By Amby Uneze in Owerri

Business mogul and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Imo State, Chief Jerry Chukwueke, weekend announced his formal resignation from the party, just as he threw his hat in the governorship ring of the state coming up next year.

He believed that the APC government in the state having failed the people as well as turning to a laughing stock should not be trusted again.

Feelers have it that he has gone back to his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), where he hopes to get the governorship ticket for 2019 elections.

Chukwueke who is the founder and Chairman of Germaine Group of Companies as well as a founding Director of Food Concepts told journalists at his country home, Awaka, in the Owerri North council area that he was compelled to call it  quit with the APC because the party in the state had degenerated to a monumental disgrace, thereby making the state a laughing stock among the 36 states of the federation.

According to him, none of the 27 General Hospitals in the state is functioning and Imo people cannot access health care delivery services any longer.

Government’s Urban Renewal Programme is a sham and has rather compounded the woes of the masses and we need social harmony and an enabling environment to promote business in Imo.

He said: “The improvement of security situation in Imo is transient and as long as poverty and unemployment continue unabated, there will be more pressure on security,” he warned.

While canvassing for a private sector driven approach to governance and community policing to improve the security situation in Imo, Chukwueke added that he was constrained to quit the APC because of his road map of poverty to prosperity, which he hopes to bring to bear as a tested and trusted manager of men and materials.

He said: “I have a strong moral burden to be associated and to defend what good governance is all about. I think we owe it to the next generation to sustain the opportunity God has given to us as a people. We will be better secured if we restructure our local environment and I believe that restructuring will start from bottom – up because we can do it on a weak foundation.”

Accusing the APC-led administration in the state of deceit, Chukwueke who is a member of the Imo Economic Development Initiative, argued that the state had remained the only state in the federation without a financial statement of her revenue and expenses till date.

This, he said is sad as the debt profile of the state is in excess of N107 billion.

He also identified lack of financial transparency, due process and rule of law as the major bane of the state at present.

The consequence, he said, is that the viability and sustainability of the economy of the state has nosedived.

“We now have a debt profile that will take many years to restructure and the ease of doing business in Imo is now a major challenge. No serious investors will bring in his investment where they are uncomfortable with the governance,” he stated.

The politician who dismissed the APC administration in the state as a disaster especially in the areas of security, job creation, education, health and provision of infrastructure argued that governance is meaningless if the necessary mechanism is not there to create job for the youths.