- Rejects delegates election and result of indirect primary
By SUNDAY ODIBASHI
The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State boils over the Sunday, September 30, 2018, primary election to nominate the party’s candidate for the 2019 governorship election in the state. The two prominent APC leaders in the state, Senator Magnus Abe and the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, are at war over the APC governorship ticket in Rivers State.
Senator Abe at the Rivers South East Senatorial District mega rally of the APC drew the battle line with Amaechi, Director General of Buhari Presidential campaign Organization. Senator Abe a the mega rally ridiculed Amaechi of being frightened by open competition, thus, restricting himself tom closed processes and short cut to taking the governorship ticket of the party.
Abe, unequivocally, declared his aversion to delegates’ indirect primary election in Rivers State. He told his supporters that APC national leadership had earlier resolved and approved direct primary election in Rivers State for the nomination of the party’s governorship candidate for 2019. The Senator decried that all party stakeholders accepted the resolution on direct primary election but that as soon as Amaechi was appointed Director General of Muhammadu Buhari Presidential Campaign, he used his new status to manipulate and reverse decisions on the primary election process in Rivers State, abandoning the direct primary election to adopt indirect delegate primary election.
Senator Abe vowed not to participate in the indirect primary election as well as not to accept the result. Abe cautioned that APC should not be thrown into the conflicts that would make President Muhammadu Buhari lose Rivers State in the 2019 presidential election.
“Amaechi is organizing indirect primary governorship election on his own in Rivers State while APC national leaders had approved direct primary election. I will not participate in that election and I will not accept the result. They should not cause the conflict that would make President Buhari lose Rivers State in 2019,” Senator Abe had declared inter alia.
The senator challenged Amaechi to come out form open competition if he thinks he is popularity, insisting that he is prepared to test his popularity with Amaechi and other APC leaders in Rivers State.
Senator Abe and his supporters maintained that it is the turn of South East Senatorial District to produce the Governor of Rivers State in 2019, arguing that other zones had produced governor of the state since 1999, except the Ogoni Land and the neighbouring climes. The senator and his group maintained that the governor must go round all stakeholders in the state, and that the time for the Ogoni clime and the South East zone is now.
National Daily gathered that the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, has abandoned Dr. Dakuku Peterside, NIMASA DG, who he sponsored in 2015 but lost to incumbent Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, the Minister had at a meeting with APC stakeholders in Lagos in August, declared his preference for Tonye Cole, Co-founder of Sahara Energy, for the APC 2019 governorship ticket in Rivers State.
Amaechi’s determination to ensure Cole gets the APC ticket for the 2019 governorship election in Rivers State has continued to cause deepening rift between him and Senator Magnus Abe. The war rages into the Sunday, September 30, 2018, governorship primary election of the APC across the country.