President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election campaign appeared dead on arrival in the South East as Imo Gov. Rochas Okorocha, the only South East governor of All Progressives Congress, APC, failed to attend the first strategic meeting of the zonal campaign council held in Enugu.
Others who were noticeably absent include former Senate President, Ken Nnamani; former Anambra State Governor, Jim Nwobodo; four ministers from the South East, Chris Ngige (Labour), Geoffrey Onyeama (Foreign Affairs), Anthony Anwuka (Education/State Minister) and Okechukwu Enelama (Trade and Investment).
Ogbonnaya Onu, the Minister of Science and Technology was the only minister from the South East that attended the closed-door meeting, convened by Miss Sharon Ikeazor, the Director of Buhari Campaign Council, South East.
The meeting, which was earlier scheduled to start by 10.am,was delayed for several hours, in the hope that some of the key stakeholders would turn up.
However,when it became obvious they were not coming, the meeting commenced by 1.pm.
Some inside sources who confided in journalists, blamed the absence of notable South East APC leaders on their dissatisfaction with the appointment of Miss Ikeazor, said to be a political rookie without any electoral antecedents as the Director of Buhari Campaign in the South East.
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Most of the APC leaders were said to have seen her appointment as an attempt by President Buhari to add salt to the injury already inflicted on Ndigbo by his administration.
The meeting however went ahead without an array of South East APC bigwigs.
Answering journalists’ questions after the first session, Miss Ikeazor played down the absence of Okorocha and others, saying that workings of government would not ground to a halt because of politics.
She said Okorocha had his representatives at the meeting who would report back to him.
“You noticed that not all ministers are here. Governance cannot ground to a halt because of politics,” she said.
On the resolutions at the meeting, Ikeazor said since there was no longer time, they resolved to adopt a targeted approach to see that Buhari wins South East.
