“There Was Nothing Like That, No Such Bench Warrant” — Okorocha Denies Arrest Order, Challenges Publishers To Produce It Within 48 Hours

Former Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha has denied reports that an Abuja court issued a bench warrant for his arrest over allegations surrounding the disputed All Progressives Congress senatorial primary result for Imo West, challenging those circulating the report to produce the purported court order within 48 hours.

Okorocha, who also represented Imo West in the Senate, reacted in a statement issued by his media aide, Sam Onwuemeodo, following reports that a Senior Magistrate’s Court in Abuja had ordered his arrest alongside former Senator Ifeanyi Araraume and two others over alleged criminal conspiracy, forgery and uttering of false documents.

The disputed reports claimed that the case arose from an alleged forged APC primary election result which presented Okorocha as the winner of the party’s Imo West senatorial primary.

Okorocha, however, described the report as false and maintained that no such bench warrant had been issued against him.

“We ask the general public to disregard the court order story. There was nothing like that. No such incident,” he said.

He challenged those behind the report to make the purported warrant publicly available.

“Now that we have openly made this appeal, the burden now is on those behind the trending story of a court order for the arrest of Okorocha to unveil the court order or bench warrant. Let them make it public,” he said.

The former governor gave the publishers of the report 48 hours to produce the alleged order, saying media organisations that carried the story should retract it and apologise if the document could not be produced.

“After the 48 hours, and if they are not able to produce or publish the court order, the onus now would fall on the media establishments that were deceived into feeding the public the false story to do the needful.

“And the needful is to retract the story, and tender an apology. That’s the most civilised thing to do,” Okorocha said.

He also disputed claims that the Independent National Electoral Commission had petitioned security agencies specifically against him.

According to Okorocha, the petition from INEC’s Imo State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Chukwuemeka Ibeziako, was directed at investigating the authenticity and source of a document circulating as an APC primary election result, rather than requesting his arrest or investigation personally.

“Rather, in his petitions, he asked the police and SSS to investigate a document in circulation that had portrayed Okorocha as the winner of the APC primary in Imo West Senatorial District. And the petition was dated Thursday, 8 October, 2026,” he said.

Okorocha further questioned the chronology of the reported arrest warrant.

The report he disputed said the purported bench warrant was issued on September 9, 2026, while the INEC petition said to have triggered the investigation was dated October 8.

He argued that the dates raised questions about how an arrest order allegedly resulting from the petition could have been issued about a month before the petition itself.

“In other words, the court order came before the petitions, and before the filing of the case.

“This is what you get when people decide to deceive, or to chase shadow,” he said.

Okorocha also alleged that a media aide to Imo State Governor Hope Uzodimma was among the first persons to circulate the arrest-warrant claim. That allegation has not been independently established.

The controversy is rooted in competing documents relating to the APC senatorial primary for Imo West held on May 18.

INEC maintains that the authentic result submitted by the APC declared Uzodimma winner of the primary and that his name was forwarded to the Commission as the party’s candidate.

A separate document later surfaced naming Okorocha as the winner. According to reports, the disputed document credited Okorocha with 150,780 votes, while the result recognised by INEC recorded 230,464 votes for Uzodimma and 1,098 votes for Okorocha.

INEC’s Imo office subsequently wrote to the Nigeria Police Force and the SSS, describing the document presenting Okorocha as winner as “fictitious” and requesting an investigation into its source and authenticity.

The Commission reportedly attached both the result it recognised as authentic and the disputed document to its petitions.

Meanwhile, Okorocha had earlier approached the Federal High Court in Abuja over the Imo West APC ticket, asking the court to determine, among other issues, whether INEC was bound by reports of officials who monitored the May 18 primary and whether the Commission was right to recognise Uzodimma as the winner.

He also raised questions about Uzodimma’s eligibility to contest for the Senate while serving as governor, whose current tenure is expected to run until January 2028.

Amid the escalating dispute, Okorocha appealed for restraint and warned against political hostility ahead of the 2027 elections.

He said anyone genuinely interested in President Bola Tinubu’s re-election should “desire peace, pursue peace and ensure peace.”

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