We never ceded ministerial slot to Wike, Rivers APC clarifies

Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt

The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has insisted that it did not cede ministerial slot to the immediate past governor of the state, Mr Nyesom Wike as being speculated.

A chieftain of the party, Mr. Tony Okocha had in different occasions called on Wike to come over and lead the APC in the state. Okocha, who was a Chief of Staff to former Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, had also called on President Bola Tinubu to cede ministerial position for Rivers State to Wike.

However, reacting to Okocha’s comments yesterday at a media briefing in Port Harcourt, the Publicity Secretary of the party in the State, Mr. Darlington Nwauju said Okocha was not a member of the party and never got the mandate from the National Secretariat of APC to speak on behalf of the party.

Nwauju noted that so many groups worked for the victory of the President in Rivers, and denied interacting with any group known as the “Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council,” which allegedly claimed to have worked for the president during the 2023 general elections in the state.

He explained: “Our attention has been drawn to publications made on national dailies in the name of Rivers State APC purporting to have ceded the Ministerial slot of the state to the immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Mr. Nyesom Wike.

“The state chapter of the party has never interacted with Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council as we have more than a hundred NGOs and support groups who worked for the APC in Rivers State.

“However for the purposes of clarity, no NGO or individual outside the officially recognised party structure has the authority of the state chapter of the party to award any entitlements to the former Governor who is obviously a card carrying member of the PDP.”

The APC in Rivers added: “We wonder where the group or individual derived its powers to speak for APC from, however, for the umpteenth time, we want to say that Mr. Tony Okocha is not a member of our great party and we have not received any communication from the national secretariat of our party that he has been granted waivers to join our party.

“So, we want to officially dispel that sponsored rumour targeted to package the political ambition of former Governor Wike. We therefore reject this obvious public ridicule and assault on our sensibilities as a political party.”

Speaking further, Nwauju said: “Assuming without conceding that Mr. Wike passed through some back channels to fund the presidential campaigns in Rivers which the state chapter cannot even account for, does his Greek gift now qualify him to be rewarded with a Ministerial slot for sponsoring 12 different court actions to stop Rivers APC from fielding candidates for the 2023 elections, sealing party offices of his opponents, encouraging his loyalists to invade campaign venues and leaving humongous destruction in the trail, denying parties access to state owned facilities for campaigns, introducing anti-democratic rules beyond the ones set by the INEC?

“The most dangerous state to raise an APC flag or campaign since 2014 till date is Rivers State. What then would this party say to hundreds of our party faithful whose freedom and rights were infringed upon through illegal detentions, bodily harm and even outright killing?

“If we had all died and the party non-existent in the state, which APC would former Governor Wike have dreamt of benefitting from?

Speaking further, he said, “the progressive party platform cannot be reduced to an arena where merchantiling on betrayals, lies and black mail becomes the only currency for political survival. We have no record of any group as Amalgamated Bola Tinubu Campaign Council in our party in Rivers State, we have a total of 76 registered NGOs and support groups that supported APC in Rivers State.”

According to Nwauju, “The president is way too experienced as to fall for the disingenuous idea of cutting his nose in order to spite his face. To suggest that the president hands the Ministerial slot meant for Rivers State to a PDP ex-Governor is to ask the president to destroy his own party.”