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The Senator Magnus Abe faction of the Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) has cautioned that the setting up a caretaker committee by its National Working Committee (NWC) will only worsen the party’s crisis.
It stated this at the end of its extraordinary stakeholders meeting in Port Harcourt to review the current situation in the Rivers State chapter of the party.
In a communiqué signed by senators Abe, Wilson Ake, former members of the House of Representatives, Chidi Wihioka and others, they said their rejection of caretaker committee was premised on the that its members are Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi’s cronies.
“Hence, their purpose is clear, they were parties to and participants in the actions that brought the party to its knees in Rivers State. Apart from being unknown to the constitution by all rules of justice and fairness, they cannot provide a solution to our present challenges.
“We, therefore, reject the caretaker committee as it is clearly an orchestration to deepen the party’s crisis and we urge all APC members in Rivers State to remain steadfast in the pursuit of justice.”
They stressed that as critical stakeholders who labored under difficult and dangerous circumstances to build the party in Rivers State, they were appalled and dismayed at the setting up of a caretaker committee without genuine reconciliation of the factions.
Noting that Nigerians were aware that the crisis in Rivers APC was set off by the manner in which last congresses were mismanaged in 2018, they argued that the development resulted in catastrophic and unprecedented consequences for the party.
Consequently, Amaechi rebuffed all efforts by different leaders of the party across the country to find a solution to the challenges of Rivers APC before the 2019 elections.
“We note with concern that the party is again threading the same path of exclusion and disdain for the rights and feelings of party members that plunged the Rivers chapter of APC into crisis resulting in its being denied participation in the last elections.
“That as critical stakeholders and knowing the circumstances of the Rivers APC, we were not consulted by the NWC in its decision to appoint a caretaker committee for Rivers State, nor does the committee reflect diversity in the state,” they declared.
They argued that based on extant judicial pronouncements and report of the Governor Simon Lalong’s committee as adopted by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC), which stated clearly that where congress could not hold, the existing executives were to manage party’s affairs, Peter Odike by party rules should have been consulted as Chairman of the Rivers APC.