By Wisdom Chukwu-Ohaegbule
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State says those jostling to take over the structure of the party without a talk with the real leader and backbone of the party in the state, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, were wasting their time.
In a widely circulated statement, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a media consultant and publicist who is known as an Amaechi loyalist, named the FCT Minister (Nyesom Wike) and former Rivers Southeast Senator (Magnus Abe) as former chief antagonists and fermenters of the trouble that now want to be in APC.
The erstwhile national publicity secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP) said the activities of both men almost ruined the state chapter of the progressives party. He said they now seem to be in a contest over who would own more stake and drive the party without recourse to those who he said held the party together when the going was tough particularly the Leader of the party in the State, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, erstwhile Governor of Rivers State and former Minister of Transportation who he said Wike nearly eliminated through CP Mbu the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State then.
In the statement, Eze said given the unprincipled terrain of Nigerian politics, he has no reservation for the entrance of those he described as ‘saboteurs’ into the party.
His concern, he stated, is that they already have intentions to further decimate the party by fermenting further crisis through jostling for leadership even when former Transportation Minister, Rt. Hon. Amaechi has not resigned his membership of the party to create room for new leadership structure.
Eze described both Wike and Abe as his personal friends. He stated that Sen. Abe played a key role at the formation stage of the APC both at the national level and in Rivers State. Under the platform, he said, Abe was elected Senator, and was tipped for the position of Senate Majority Leader if he had listened to wise counsel to stop his fight against APC and contest for the South East Senatorial Seat in 2019.
He said Abe would have been duly elected as Senate President unopposed if he had contested the 2023 general elections as a Senator. He said Abe threw every counsel to the winds when he resolved to join Wike to ruin the APC with crisis using state resources forgetting the crown that was set before him just because the party was unable to field him during the 2015 general elections. By 2023, Eze stated, Abe walked away from the party to fly the flag of SDP during the 2023 general elections where he claimed he made no significant impact.
Eze said it would be fair that since President Tinubu has settled to reward those who fought APC in Rivers State, he should look the way of Sen. Abe for an appointment and not just Wike, because, according to him, Abe was a good saboteur, a spoiler from the inside.
Eze maintained that nobody can deny the fact that both Abe and Wike played a key role in the decimation of APC in Rivers State and for Wike alone to be so honoured is totally unfair and unacceptable to any rationale mind.
The party Chief said it is good that Abe’s entrance forces Wilke to organize an emergency and unwise luncheon where 25 former Rivers Lawmakers and other political jobbers, used mercenaries and some elders converged.
He said the luncheon saw just one out of three Senators from Rivers State in attendance; former members of the Rivers State Executive Council who resigned were also present gazing in confusion.
Chief Eze informed Wike to reconsider his conviction that assembling those irrelevant political jobbers would relaunch his wobbling political relevance and structure which has been demolished by God through Gov. Sim Fubara with the support of Rivers people. “Nothing will take Rivers State to Egypt again no matter the level of evil gatherings and machinations.”
He called on Wike and Abe to formally apologize to Rivers people, particularly the APC family for the carnage, and unspeakable evil he said they wrought on the party and her supporters in the state during the 2015 to 2023 elections and the party and pay a royal visit to Amaechi who he said made the party.
