Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in Rivers State, Igo Aguma has accused the Minister of Transportation, RT. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi of enriching himself from the lingering problems in the party in the state.
Aguma made the allegation during a stakeholders briefing of APC members for Port Harcourt council area of the state yesterday.
He accused Amaechi, who is also the leader of the party in the state, of masterminding the unending crisis in the party for his selfish interest.
He said that the party is fast collapsing on Amaechi, adding that he is the sole reason the party in Rivers State is in disarray, and that he is benefitting immensely from it.
The former House of Representatives member appealed to the national leaders of the party to pay attention to the party in the state to stop it from dying, saying that it is like an abandoned ship.
“We are aware that the present state of the party in the state is benefitting Hon. Amaechi, but the truth is that the party is now collapsing on his head, Nigerians and the world now know what he is doing,” Aguma said.
“We are calling on the national executive members of APC to take interest in what is happening in the party in the state. APC in Rivers state is like an abandoned ship, we’ve decided to start doing things by ourselves to call the attention of the National Secretariat to our plight in state.
“I have taken steps to write an open letter to the National Chairman of the APC which was also delivered privately to him.
“Just one man cannot manipulate the party for his own personal benefits. Why did we not do direct primaries? Everybody knows it is the solution if every political party that has a series of court cases, that was offered to us as a party, but our leader rejected it.
” It is direct primaries that ordinarily produce the most popular candidate, and that would have even produced the candidate of his choice, because he had our supports as at then, but because he us afraid of raising more people, that could probably challenge his authority, he insisted on doing the wrong thing.” Igo stated.
“So we have called on the National Secretariat to come into what we are doing in the state, and we have been told that the Lawan committee is about to be set up, we are waiting for them to be inaugurated, and we have already began to get ready our position papers from the 23 Local Government areas of the state to be presented to the members of that committee.” he said.
Asked why he did not align with former Senator Magnus Abe when he was agitating for the conduct of direct primaries in the nullified APC congress when he knew it would have sorted out all disagreements that drowned the party in the last election said, Senator Abe’s fight was selfish and not for the interest of the party in the state.
“Understand that there is ambition which is personal and there is party interest. I do not have a governorship ambition, so whichever side anybody belonged, has nothing to do with the general interest of the party.
“If we has held a direct primaries, the most popular candidate would have emerged, it could have been Magnus or some other person. What Magus was pursuing was his personal ambition which he has now publicly declared that it is over and that time has passed.
“What is happening now is not restricted to Magnus’ ambition, it is a general problem we have in the party and Magnus is not the problem. The problem we have in the party is completely the leader of the party, which is RT Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, he is appropriating the party for his own selfish gain.” he said.
He however expressed concern on the need to rescue the party from further decay and possible extinction.
In his reactions, Amaechi denied all the allegations, and instead boasted of harvesting more membership for the party in the state.
Amaechi who spoke through the party’s Port Harcourt council party chairman Nnamdi Wuche said, “Most of the people that came to that meeting are not APC members. They are not politicians. The APC in Port Harcourt has dissociated itself from Aguma. It is not true that the party is collapsing. Rather, more people are joining the APC in the state because of Amaechi.”
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