Magnus Abe, senator representing Rivers south-east senatorial district, has asked supporters of Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, to stop blaming President Muhammadu Buhari for their woes.
The Senator said Nigerians have heard and ignored stories of the abuses rained on the president on a daily basis by those who are supposed to be his supporters and promoters in Rivers.
Abe was reacting to comments made by Chidi Loyd, an ally of Amaechi, who had accused the president of abandoning members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state “when they needed him the most.”
In a statement he signed on Friday, Senator Abe said: “I was visibly shocked when Hon. Chidi Lloyd, the Director-General of the Amaechi/Cole campaign went on Channels TV to openly abuse the president and blamed President Buhari for the electoral challenges facing the APC in Rivers state,” Abe said in a statement.
“This is most unfortunate. The habit of blaming everyone else for our woes must stop immediately. We had a needless and senseless power tussle in the party even when everyone agreed that the minister was the leader, yet that was Senator Abe’s fault, (because Senator Abe has a gubernatorial ambition as if there is any member of a political party in Nigeria without an ambition).
“APC members in Rivers State went to court for a minor issue that could have been resolved internally in ten minutes, they were accused of being sponsored by Governor Wike.
“The APC leadership went to physically attack the courts and openly disobeyed court orders and the courts responded by axing the candidates for being products of that disobedience. The judges were accused of being PDP and working for Wike.
“Now you have gone into an election for which you are clearly ill-prepared, and yet the president gave you everything. Rivers APC had NDDC, Railway, NPA, Shippers Council; Ministry of Transportation, Police, Army, Air Force, DSS and yet you could not win because the INEC REC is PDP. INEC Chairman is PDP, haba!”
The senator sarcastically asked if the president was also working with Wike since he is being blamed for the party’s problems.
He noted that if members of the APC had taken their time to remind the people of Buhari’s love for them, the party would have made more sense to the electorate.
“In playing our usual blame game let us leave President Buhari out of it and focus on the real issues facing the party in Rivers state,” he said.