Two members of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State, who claimed to be loyal to Sen. Magnus Abe have accused him of working with the People’s Democratic party to cripple the party in the state.
Speaking, during a press briefing over the weekend, the men identified as Tonte Amachree from Asari Toru and Kelvin Okechukwu from Opobo, alleged that the Abe group is fighting to ensure the party is left out of the ballot in 2023 like in 2019.
According to them, they were invited to a meeting by one Ben Horsfall and Ben Jaja who are loyalists to Abe, to sign an affidavit to join a suit against the party in the state.
They also alleged that the meeting was held at the residence of a former Attorney General of the state, Worgu Boms.
The men called on the National leadership of party to act fast and call Abe and his group to order to avoid a repeat of the 2019 misfortune.
The statement reads,
Our names are, Tonte Amachree from Asari-Toru Local Government Area APC Ward 7, and Kelvin Okechukwu Obulo from Opobo-Nkoro APC Ward 4.
We are members of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers Sate. We have been loyal and active members of the Magnus Abe group.
Thursday last week, we were called by Bethel Oko-Jaja and Ben Horsefall who are known leaders of the Magnus Abe group in Opobo/Nkoro and Asari-Toru Local Government Areas respectively, to a meeting where we would sign an affidavit to join in the suit against the APC in Rivers State and its former Caretaker Chairman, Isaac Ogbobula.
The meeting was held at the house of Worgu Boms, a former Attorney General of Rivers State under the administration of former Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
The meeting had elite members of the Magnus Abe group like Golden Ben-Chioma and Worgu Boms in attendance.
The State PDP Chairman, Ambassador Desmond Akawor, was also in that meeting. He introduced himself and addressed us, advising the group on how to proceed.
Desmond Akawor assured us that the state government would ensure that the case is reassigned to a judge that would do our bidding, after the former Judge, Justice Minakiri, recused himself from the suit.
Now, this is our grouse.
Why would the Chairman of the opposition party be in our meeting?
We had earlier believed that we were working to put the party back together. But with this new development, we believe otherwise.
How can the leadership of the opposition PDP be in our midst, encouraging us and even guiding us on how to pull down our own party from the inside?
Why would our people be conniving with the state government and the PDP to destroy our party in the guise of making things right?
We silently walked out of that devilish meeting with the realisation that we’ve been fooled all along.
We cannot fold our arms and allow Magnus Abe and his group to mislead us again. We cannot afford for our party not to be on the ballot again. We refuse to let 2019 repeat itself in 2023.
And we are, by this statement, calling on the APC national to call senator Magnus Abe and his group to order, so that Rivers APC will move forward.
