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Wike warns PDP not to toy with Rivers

By Kelvin Ebiri, Port Harcourt
12 September 2019   |   4:12 am
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has warned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not to toy with the state in its interest.

Nyesom Wike

Caretaker committee will worsen APC crisis, says Abe’s faction
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has warned the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) not to toy with the state in its interest.

He issued the warning yesterday in Port Harcourt while expressing dismay over the committee set up by his party to investigate the emergence of Ndudi Elumelu as the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives.

Wike described the committee as the most corrupt in the history of the major opposition party.

The governor, however, lauded the former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara, for withdrawing from the committee and not allowing himself to be entangled in its activities.

“The committee set up by the PDP on the illegal emergence of Ndudi Elumelu is the most corrupt committee ever set up by the party. We thank our worthy son, Austin Opara, for withdrawing from that committee, so that he is not entangled in the illegal activities of the tainted committee.

“We are warning PDP to be careful not to toy with Rivers State. The state has all it takes to withstand the PDP and fight the party to a standstill. Rivers governor is not one of those governors that anyone can cajole. He is not one of those governors that will kowtow to illicit activities,” he said.

Meanwhile, Senator Magnus Abe’s faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state has cautioned that setting up a caretaker committee by the National Working Committee (NWC) will only worsen the party’s crisis.

The faction stated this at the end of its extraordinary stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt to review the current situation in the state chapter of the party.

In a communiqué issued yesterday, Senators Abe and Wilson Ake, as well as former members of the House of Representatives, including Chidi Wihioka, said their rejection of the caretaker committee was premised on the fact that its members were cronies of the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi.

“Hence, their purpose is clear; they were parties to and participants in the actions that brought the party to its knees in Rivers. Apart from being unknown to the constitution by all rules of justice and fairness, they cannot provide a solution to our present challenges.

“We, therefore, reject the caretaker committee, as it is clearly an orchestration to deepen the party’s crisis and we urge all APC members in Rivers to remain steadfast in the pursuit of justice.”

They stressed that as critical stakeholders who laboured under difficult and dangerous circumstances to build the party in Rivers, they were appalled at the setting up of a caretaker committee without genuine reconciliation of the factions.

Noting that Nigerians were aware that the crisis in Rivers APC was set off by the manner in which the congresses were mismanaged in 2018, they argued that the development resulted in catastrophic and unprecedented consequences for the party.

Consequently, Amaechi rebuffed all efforts by different leaders of the party across the country to find a solution to the challenges of Rivers APC before the 2019 elections.

“We note with concern that the party is again treading the same path of exclusion and disdain for the rights and feelings of party members that plunged the Rivers chapter of APC into crisis resulting in its being denied participation in the last elections.

“That as critical stakeholders and knowing the circumstances of the Rivers APC, we were not consulted by the NWC in its decision to appoint a caretaker committee for Rivers, nor does the committee reflect diversity in the state,” they declared.

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