The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State has berated a former senator who represented Rivers South-East in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, for supporting and leading the 2023 presidential campaign of the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, in Rivers State. The State APC accused Abe of treachery and deception, describing the former senator as a political wanderer in the state.
An APC leader in Rivers State, Eze, a former PDP member, labelled Abe and his group as “men of mean character and low pedigree”, saying that any politician in Nigeria who has political ambition towards 2023 should not associate with Abe and his supporters if such politician wants to succeed.
Eze, expressing disaffection over the inauguration of Tinubu’s BAT Vanguard in Port Harcourt, Rivers State under the state leadership of Senator Abe, cautioned that ‘every group is evaluated by the electoral value it adds to the system, not the height of malicious propaganda schemed against an opponent.’
Eze had declared: “One of those misguided group exist in Rivers State in which most of them have no political party, but merely floating on the river of politics and doing everything humanly possible to damage the political aspirations of both political blocks within and outside Rivers State.”
At the inauguration of the Bola Ahmed Tinubu Support Group – BAT Vanguard – the Rivers State Branch at Freedom House, which is Senator Abe’s Campaign Secretariat in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Wilson Ake, the Chairman, Steering Committee of the BATS Vanguard in Rivers, had declared that Tinubu is eminently qualified to be the president of Nigeria in 2023. Ake chided people who try to disqualify Tinubu as being too old for the president of Nigeria in 2023. Ake noted that the contributions of Tinubu to the growth of democracy and party system in Nigeria, more than anything else, qualified him to be Nigeria’s president.
“For us in Rivers State, we are solidly behind the presidency of our national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He worked so hard for the APC and he’s a detribalised man who has done so well for our democracy over the years.
“When Tinubu was working so hard for the APC, nobody talked about his age. “He has finished working, now, they are saying go and sit down let one young person come and take over. Does it work like that?
“I believe Tinubu is going there to make things better for Nigeria and Nigerians. He has the capacity and the ability to fix the economy of the country,” Ake declared.
Eze was unsettled by the support Abe mobilized for Tinubu. He attacked Abe, saying that Senator Magnus Abe took an oath never to allow harmony and cohesion exist in the state APC unless and until he is endorsed as APC governorship candidate in Rivers.
Eze accused Abe of sabotaging the APC and working with Governor Nyesom Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to win the 2015 and 2019 elections, ensuring the defeat of the APC in the state.
According to Eze: “His antecedents in the 2015 and 2019 general elections are very visible to the close watchers of the politics of Rivers State. He perfected the act of ensuring the decimation of the APC during the 2019 general elections when he ensured that the party never fielded or participated in the 2019 general elections in the State.
“After successfully executing the plot, most of his key allies in the wicked plot against Rivers State and her people were appointed into the State Executive Council as Commissioners and others as Heads of government Agencies and parastatals.”
Eze maintained that “contrary to Abe’s boasting, particularly before his followers, that APC will never exist or survive in Rivers State without him, the party has, through the Congresses conducted in the State, established a functional structure recognised by law and the APC national leadership.
“In his folly, he excused himself and his followers from revalidating their membership of the party and lost all rights to speak or act as party members.”
Eze declared that regardless of their non-membership of the APC, they have continued to deceive the gullible and the general public that Senator Abe will not only contest the 2023 general elections but will win.
“But little do they know that a non-member of a political party, like Abe, cannot frustrate other eligible Rivers sons and daughters who are established members of the party from contesting elections, as he did during the 2019 elections, but, instead, will reap the consequences of his past deeds no matter the odds.
“This is in line with the principle of the laws as contained in the Holy Bible particularly as contained in the following verses of the Holy Book:
Job 4:8 “As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.”
Psalm 7:16 “The trouble they cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads.”
Galatians 6:7 “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”
“Abe is my friend and I cannot deceive him and wish to counsel him as his senior in this journey of life that his aspiration to govern Rivers State will remain a mirage until he conducts himself as advised in the Book of John 1:9 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
“Abe must confess his wickedness and apologize accordingly to the people of Rivers State for the many woes he brought to the State through his brand of politics,” Eze stated.
Eze cautioned: “They should stop using the name or platform of APC as they are not members of the party until they re validate their membership.”
Eze also told Tinubu to be cautious of Abe and his antics, saying that the former Senator is not an APC member. He told the APC national leader that if Abe could swear to destroy the political family of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who not only brought him to limelight by appointing him Secretary to the Rivers Government and influencing his election into the Senate on two occasions, then, he is capable of drowning his political dreams if he fails to achieve his ambition or aim within the Tinubu political setting.
Eze stated: “Although, I do not know if Tinubu has done as much as Amaechi has done for Abe, but if he can destroy the aspiration of thousands of people under a party led by Amaechi who made him all he is, then, he can do same to Tinubu, from who he has achieved nearly nothing.
“This is why a great son of Rivers State, Robins Debeloved counseled, “The fact remains that even the devil will be afraid to work with Abe, if crocodile can eat his own eggs, what can he not do to the flesh of a frog.”
Meanwhile, some other stakeholders disclosed that Eze is working for his political principal in Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation, who may be interested in the 2023 presidential race. Also, Amaechi was perceived to have been having latent interval rivalry with Tinubu in the APC. More so, the Minister has been having disagreement with Abe, after attempting to frustrate the senator, who has been his political ally for long, from getting the APC governorship ticket ion Rivers State.
The stakeholders, therefore, argued that Eze will ordinarily not be expected to speak good of Abe, having assignment to perform in the defence of his political principal, Amaechi, in their battle for supremacy with Abe in Rivers State.