The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has rejected claims that the party has willingly yielded the ministerial slot of the state to the immediate past governor of the state Nyesom Wike, a card-carrying member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
A group, the Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council, earlier in the week at Abuja claimed that due to Wike’s role in helping the APC Presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu emerge victorious during the 2023 general elections, the leadership of the Rivers APC had therefore decided to reward the former governor with the ministerial slot.
Addressing a press conference, Tuesday in Abuja, Chief Okocha, who was the Chairman, Local Organising Committee for Bola Tinubu Campaign Council in Rivers state said that the leadership of the APC in Rivers has thrown its weight behind the immediate-past governor of the state, Nyesom Wike to pick statutory ministerial appointment that would be zoned to the state.
He claimed that the reason for the decision was because his former boss, Rotimi Amaechi and Magnus Abe almost sabotaged the electoral chances of President Bola Tinubu during the 2023 general elections.
He stated that the immediate past governor Wike, worked hard to deliver Asiwaju’s victory in the state, hence he had been invited to join the party and become the leader.
But the APC in its reaction dismissed the statement as ludicrous, insulting and damaging, a cheap blackmail which the party could not succumb to.
State Publicity Secretary of the party Darlington Nwauju told journalists at a press briefing; “The state chapter of the APC has never interacted with the Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council which the purveyors of that falsehood claim to represent or representing and we have more than a 100 NGOs and support groups duly registered with us and who also worked with the APC in the last general elections.
“However, for the purposes of clarity, no NGO or individual outside of the officially recognised party structure has the mandate or the authority of our party, the state chapter of the APC to award any entitlement or honour or recognition to anybody whatsoever, nonetheless the former governor of the state who is obviously as at today, a card-carrying member of the PDP.
“We wonder where the group or individual derived this power to speak for the APC.”
Nwauju went furthermore to declare “We want to say that Tony Okocha is not a member of our great party and we have not received any communication from the National Secretariat of our party pointing to him being granted any waivers to join our party because there are two ways you can join the political party.
“And again to further elaborate on that point I want to say that that name was not on the list that was officially forwarded to the INEC before the 2023 general elections.
“So we want to make this clarification because we think there’s an obvious misrepresentation of facts.”
He described the call by Okocha and his group as an attempt targeted at laundering the political image and furthering the political interest of Mr. Nyesom Wike, the former governor.
“We, therefore, categorically reject this obvious ridicule of our political party and condemn this assault on our collective sensibilities as members of the APC,” the Rivers APC spokesman added.
We cannot reduce our progressive party platform to an arena where machantiling on betrayals lies and blackmails becomes the only currency for political survival”.
“We have no record again of any interactions or agreements between us the APC and the Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council which Mr. Tony Okocha claims to be speaking for”.
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