By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
The All Progressives Congress (APC) appears to have not learn’t any lesson from the crisis that denied it participation in the general election in Rivers State in 2019.
On Friday December 18, 2020, a faction of the APC in Rivers led by Igo Aguma insisted that the party had no structures in the state apart from the state caretaker committee empowered by the court to carry out the functions of the party and led by him.
Recall that the National Executive Committee (NEC) dissolved all structures of APC across the country and ordered inauguration of caretaker committees to replace them, recently.
But Aguma insisted that the NEC’s decision was not applicable to the state.
Besides, he said that since the party had unresolved cases up to the Supreme Court, nobody could determine the leadership of the APC in the state outside the judiciary.
However, the APC faction led by the Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, faulted the position of Aguma and immediately constituted fresh caretaker committees for the state, local government and ward levels with Isaac Ogbobula as the state’s acting chairman.
But Aguma in a counter action on Friday inaugurated a parallel local government and ward caretaker committees in all the 23 local government areas of the state.
He recalled that on June 9, 2020, the court declared him the APC caretaker committee chairman of the APC, adding he had continued to adhere to the dictates of the judgement.
He advised the local government caretaker committees to go back to their various wards and reconcile all aggrieved members of the party.
He thanked the Freedom House for allowing APC Rivers to use their facility for the inauguration, stressing that at the end of the reconciliation efforts in the state, the state executive committee and stakeholders would agree on the hiring of an APC Rivers secretariat.
Aguma, who claimed that the APC had no secretariat, maintained that all factional offices of the APC in Rivers remained closed to allow for the resolution of all issues.
He commended the Senator Magnus Abe faction for closing down its factional APC Secretariat and called on Rotimi Amaechi’s faction to comply by closing down their factional Secretariat at 65 Aba road Port Harcourt.
Aguma in Port Harcourt on Wednesday regretted that the party was back to a similar route it took at the dictates of one man in 2019, which made it impossible for the APC to field candidates in elective offices thereby dashing the hope of traumatised party faithful.
“This is because one man, who is playing god in the party is out to fulfill his vow to destroy APC in the state because that is the only way he can maintain the control of every patronage that is due Rivers State from the federal level.
“Sadly, another local government election in Rivers State is around the corner scheduled to hold in April 2021, yet the party that should be playing formidable opposition is enmeshed in a crisis and put on the war path by known dissidents because of the selfish political interest of one man”, he said.
He said that the recent inauguration of caretaker committees of APC at the state local and ward levels and the appointment of one Isaac Ogbobula as the state’ committee chairman by the ‘Amaechi Sociopolitical Group’ had nothing to do with the APC.
Aguma said that persons behind the inauguration were out to blackmail his committee’s resolve to rebuild the party in the state.
His words: “For emphasis, they are an aggrieved group within the APC in Rivers State made up of renegade and sponsored by the self-acclaimed godfather of the APC in Rivers State
“The desperate actions of the said Isaac Ogbobula and the Amaechi political group cartels are only misleading the inspecting public and a section of the APC with their manifest penchant for self-help and jungle justice.
“This same Isaac Ogbobula has been ostensibly hired to propagate divisiveness in the party and he knows he lacks the political pedigree and legitimacy to be the chairman of the APC in Rivers State. What he and his co-travellers fail to understand is that they cannot shrink the APC to be put into the pocket the self-parading godfather of party in Rivers”.
But Ogbobula said that the decision of the party’s NEC to dissolve all the structures of the party had ended all legal issues against the leadership of the party in the state.
Abbot-Ogbobula insisted that there was no longer crisis in Rivers APC, claiming that the likes of Igo Aguma were inconsequential to the party in the state.