Stop Meddling in Our Party Affairs, APC Chief Tells Opposition
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
The Chairman, Local Organising Committee (LOC ), Tinubu Presidential Campaign in Rivers State, Tony Okocha, has advised none All Progressives Congress (APC) members in the state to stop meddling in issues their party affairs, insisting they had no rights to speak on matters of APC.
The APC chieftain, who maintained that the party was presently in a state of emergency and needed critical attention to be resuscitated, warned none APC members to stop speaking for the party, especially those he claimed were seeking political favour from President Bola Tinubu.
Okocha, a former Chief of Staff to a former Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, gave the advice at a parley with journalists in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
Explaining the reason for inviting the former River State governor, Nyesom Wike to take over the APC leadership in the state, Okocha said the state chapter of the party has bled to comma and needed an experienced politician with the needed pedigree and administrative record like Wike to resuscitate the party.
He pointed out that the APC in Rivers had become a social club, so the moment to detract from it was now, ahead of the 2027 general election, saying with collaboration of all committed members of the party, APC in Rivers would resuscitate and attain its robust position in the state.
“APC election score in 2019 was worse than that of 2015; we did not score even 12 per cent of the total votes cast in the state in that exercise, but then Wike was already in government. The party did everything to stifle every chance for APC to breathe in elections.
“Even though Chibuike Amaechi was already a minister in the federal ministry and had the chances of leveraging on the INEC, police, others to win the poll for the party in the state.
“Then the recent one, the jinx of many years was broken, APC was able to win presidential election in the state, simply because former Governor Nyesom Wike mobilised his PDP members and supporters to support and voted for APC.
“If you say you are strong, PDP won all the 32 state House of Assembly seats, won 12 of the 13 Federal constituency and the entire three senatorial seats, and the governorship, even when you are in the field and contested the exercise.
“If we allow Wike to go back to PDP after helping us to win the presidency in 2023, will he still come from there to help us again in 2027?
“Going forward we need to have a robust APC, and someone who is not a member of APC is somewhere criticising that the call is unrealistic. He has no right, locus standi; he is a gate-crasher to where he was not needed and invited. He is a meddlesome interloper,” Okocha said.
