South-East needs visionary leader for future Presidency –Okorocha

Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, has urged Igbo people to think outside the box in order to find a leader with vision and passion for the South-East to clinch the Presidency in future.

He said argument about where one comes from to be qualified for the Office of the President was immaterial, but warned that sticking to that policy might pave the way for the emergence of a greenhorn at the pinnacle of power.

Addressing journalists on the current national challenges, Okorocha attributed the raging crisis rocking the National Assembly to the emergence of some politicians in the leadership of the legislature.

The governor said the Peoples Democratic Party held the nation by the throat for many years because the party acquired power through the back door, which he claimed, placed the South-East at a disadvantaged leadership position in the National Assembly.

Okorocha, however, noted that the All Progressives Congress had become synonymous with the masses on account   of the implementation of good policies.

According to him, the success of the APC in the just concluded Imo North Senatorial rerun has now brightened the prospect of  the South-East to occupy the leadership position in the National Assembly.

The governor said the success of the APC in the rerun was a watershed in the political history of the APC in the South-East and expressed optimism that the party would enable the region to recover all that had eluded it.

While decrying the increasing monthly wage bill of civil servants in the state, which he described as the highest in the South-East, Okorocha said the state government would soon come up with an innovation to reduce the number of working days in the state to three days a week.

This, he said, would enable the civil servants to embark on some other vocations that would enable them to augment whatever they receive as salaries.

Okorocha described the demolition of some structure and the relocation of the Owerri main market within  Owerri  as inevitable options to advance the aesthetic nature of the city and its environ.

He added that his administration’s urban renewal programme would be sustained.

Meanwhile, it was learnt that apathy marred the Imo State rerun in Isiala Mbano and Oru East councils.

Heavily armed policemen took over the various polling stations in the designated voting centres in the Imo North Senatorial Districts (Okigwe zone) on Thursday.

Our correspondent,  who  monitored the exercise, reports that although  electoral officers  and materials meant for the exercise  arrived the centres on time, few  voters were seen in queues in most  of the voting centres.

 PUNCH.