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Rivers: I was in SDP when I nominated people into Tinubu’s PCC, ICC — Abe

Senator Magnus Abe has said that it was unnecessary for some politicians in Rivers State to mount a campaign of calumny against him in order to score cheap political mileage in their search for appointments from President Bola Tinubu.

He said that the argument that he was a member of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) at the time of the presidential election was immaterial since he was at that time nominating people to serve in the campaign council of the All Progressive Congress (APC), describing the campaign as unnecessary.

Abe, who made this known while addressing guests at his residence in Bera, Gokana, shortly after the burial of the late Godwin Baatee Bazari, noted that his political enemies did not need to blackmail him in order to gain an appointment at the federal level.

The Governorship candidate of the SDP in the 2023 election said: “If the issue is that they say I’m in SDP, I was in SDP when I nominated people to serve in the Presidential Campaign Council of APC.

“I was in SDP when I nominated people to serve in the Independent Campaign Council and they accepted, then it wasn’t a problem, how is that a problem now?

“If there are opportunities for Nigerians, we are also Nigerians and a lot of people will be able to improve their own lives. I think that’s what we need.

“All these campaigns of calumny against me are totally unnecessary and I want to appeal to all of us Rivers people, let us cease fire.

“Everybody across the country is looking for an appointment, they are not looking for it by destroying one another, there is no need for us to destroy one another in Rivers State to look for appointments.

“You can market yourself without de-marketing anybody else. The former representative of Rivers’ Southeast senatorial district at the National Assembly called on Nigerians to pray for President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu who, he said is determined to open up the economy and create opportunities for the people of this country.

He advised: “We should pray for God to give him wisdom, knowledge, courage and the ability and capacity to pick those that he can work with” emphasizing that there was no need to struggle or fight or engage in any needless quarrel with anybody.

Earlier in his tribute to the late Godwin Bazari at the Methodist Church Nigeria, Biara circuit, Dioceses of Gokana, Abe described Bazari as a pillar of support when it mattered most and was never one step behind in times of challenges but weathered all, ‘standing side by side with us’.

“So I thank those of you who have come today to join us in this burial, Bazari was a friend, a brother who impacted all of us, this is not a celebration but it is an acknowledgment of a life that has been well lived,” the Senator said.

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