* Party says not part of Wike’s committees
By Ignatius Chukwu
President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has been warned against being pranked in Rivers State. The APC group in the state want their leader to be warry of strategies that may hoodwink him this early.
Gov Nyesom Wike has set up some committees on sensitive matters saying he brought people from various political parties.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state has however denied being part of any committee by the governor.
The governor has rather flashed names and photographs of leaders who have been denied by the APC as their members.
One of the committees is the 220-member inauguration committee to bring in the next government. Another is the one that managed the visit of the president-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to Rivers State.
In a statement in Port Harcourt, the publicity secretary of the APC, Darlington Nwauju, said media reports and innuendos circulating in the media space concerning the visit of President-elect, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to Rivers State, were not true.
“While the Rivers State Chapter of the APC wholeheartedly welcomed our President-elect and appreciates his work ethic of getting first hand knowledge of the various sub-nationals, we however wish to clarify that this is a private visit on the invitation of the Rivers State Government controlled by the PDP and has nothing to do with APC in Rivers State.
“We challenge the governor being an outgoing governor to play less of divisive politics and not planting seeds of discord in opposition political parties.
“We are aware that the governor has been working so hard to paint a false perception of collapse of the APC structure in Rivers State even when he had in previous well documented interviews vowed never to have anything to do with a “cancer party (APC)”.
The APC said they believe that it is morally wrong to always seek to be politically correct even when government should be serious business and access to the instrumentality of power should be to the public good rather than patronage to lackeys and minions.
“We are aware of Gov Wike’s plot to prank our President-elect into believing his false narrative that there is no other opposition political party existing in Rivers State. Rivers people already know this is not the correct situation on ground.
“Rivers State APC lost four of it’s members on the 18th of March 2023 and we still expect the Police in Rivers State to tell the world who the sponsors and killers of our members are.
“No member of our party can dance on the graves of our fallen heroes by joining Gov Wike to mock those who lost their lives; except of course those who Gov Wike financially induced to act as moles while claiming to be APC members.
“Rivers APC is focused on pursuing justice by challenging the outcome of the flawed March 18th 2023 elections at the Elections Petitions Tribunal and cannot be distracted by the antics of Gov Wike and his co-travellers.”
The party said for the avoidance of doubts, the leadership of APC in the state was neither part of his Transition Committee nor the so-called Committee set up for the visit of the President-elect.
