Rivers crisis: APC chieftain slams Magnus Abe over comment on stranded lawmakers

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Rivers crisis: APC chieftain slams Magnus Abe over comment on stranded lawmakers

Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State has described a recent verdict by Senator Magnus Abe on the status of the 27 stranded Rivers lawmakers as testament to his ranking as a perverse political hireling.

Eze, a former national spokesman for the New Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, also said the gale of resignation in Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s cabinet is a necessary purgation for a neoclassical renaissance in the current administration.

He said the former Rivers South-East Senator, Abe, has offered a grossly distorted asseveration to the very plain and unequivocal letters of the Constitution on the status of the 27 pro-Wike former lawmakers whose defection sealed their voluntary exit from the Rivers State House of Assembly to which they were elected in early 2023.

Abe had, in a recent publication, said that when he served as Senator, he, alongside eleven others defected from the political platform on whose sponsorship they were elected to the Red Chambers, to another political organization without any consequence whatsoever.

Conveying his reaction through a statement made available to the media, Eze said Abe sounded scarcely lettered and untaught on how little resemblance the circumstance that led to the defection of the 27 state lawmakers bore to the heavy political crisis that necessitated their own exit from the PDP in 2014 which he cited as an instance.

The APC chief said prior to the 2015 elections, there was a multi-layer crisis within the ranks of the PDP which was central to public discourse in the global stage, leading to the crack that birthed the nPDP which later merged with the APC to wrestle power from the PDP.

“During the time Abe and others defected, PDP was embroiled in crisis and as a result, during the National Congress of party at Eagle Square, six Governor’s including former Vice President and critical stakeholders of PDP like Senator Saraki and others left the Congress to form a parallel Congress and that action gave birth to the New Peoples Democratic Party where some of us were elected as the national officers.

“That parallel convention produced Abubakar Baraje as National Chairy while His Excellency Olagunsoye Oyinlola as National Secretary with Chief Sam Sam Jaja as National Vice chairman from the party.

‘The split in PDP then was so pronounced that the then PDP National Chairman, Bamanga Turkur was gasping for air,” he said.

Eze said it smacks of deliberate absurdity for Sen. Abe, a beneficiary of the 2014 political masterstroke that sent PDP out of office, to stoop so low to the extent of trading his sense of judgement for a federal appointment he has not yet seen by trying to repair a situation that is bad beyond repair.

He said the situation of the former Rivers lawmakers is distinct from the instance cited by Abe in an attempt to merit a place in the good book of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, stressing that the former SDP gubernatorial candidate, as always, is merely feigning ignorance and his dishonest pitching has only succeeded in putting a question mark to his status as a Lawyer, especially in the light of the plain wordings of Section 109(1)g of the Nigerian Constitution.

On the gale of resignation that rocked the Gov. Siminialayi Fubara’s cabinet a few days back, Eze said the exit of the moles was long overdue and it was good for them that they left voluntarily instead of being petered out.

He added that their departure was a necessary purging to fast-track the injection of fresh blood into the system in order to prepare the government for the serious task ahead.

While forewarning Sen. Abe to leave Amaechi out of his renewed contract for smear campaign, Eze, again, appealed with Wike to consider the former Rivers Southeast Senator for recommendation to President Tinubu for an appointment to redeem him from political relegation which status he has suffered for ages.