Senator Magnus Abe (Rivers Southeast), Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) Deputy Chairman Chief Peter Odike and their supporters yesterday lost out of the state’s ward congress.
Chairman of Ward and Local Government Congresses Committee for Rivers State Joseph Dogo, who came from the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, along with members of his team, confirmed that the congresses took place on Saturday in the state’s 319 wards.
Dogo spoke last night in an interview with reporters at the state’s APC secretariat on Forces Avenue, Old Government Reservation Area (GRA), Port Harcourt, after collating the results.
Abe, who is also a governorship aspirant on the platform of APC for the 2019 election, on Saturday evening in Port Harcourt, in an online statement by his spokesperson, Parry Benson, however, claimed that there was no ward congress of the APC in the 23 councils of Rivers State.
The former Secretary to the Rivers State Government stated that there was no stakeholders’ meeting before the scheduled ward congress, as promised by the leadership of APC in Rivers.
The senator alleged that the party leadership went against the guidelines of the ward congress by allowing contestants to pick forms on the day of the ward congress.
Abe, Odike, and their teeming supporters across the councils, on Friday, celebrated the motion on notice in a suit filed by Felix Mboi, an ally of Abe, to stop Saturday’s ward congress.
The APC; its National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; Rivers APC Chairman Chief Davies Ikanya; and the Secretary, Chief Emeka Beke, are defendants.
Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi, who is the leader of APC in Rivers and the Southsouth zone, and the deputy leader, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, who was the 2015 governorship candidate of the APC, however, declared in separate interviews in Port Harcourt that they were not aware of any court order or injunction retraining Rivers APC from conducting Saturday’s ward congress.
Dogo, who was accompanied by members of his team from Abuja, Ikanya and some members of the State Working Committee (SWC), addressed reporters under a canopy within APC’s state secretariat, since thugs decided on Friday to vandalise the secretariat, destroying valuable property.
Chairman of the congresses committee said: “So far, we have received results from the 23 LGAs in Rivers State, with total combined wards of 319. With the receipt of these results now completed, the task now is on the committee members to go through the processing of the results. So that we can hand over this report to the appeal committee, which will start sitting by tomorrow (today). The appeal committee will look into any appeal coming out of the exercise that was conducted.
“There was election (ward congress in Rivers State). I do not know whether there is a contradiction between an allegation (by Abe and his supporters) and a fact. If there is an allegation and there is a fact, I do not know how contradictory it is. From the report that was documented, including the one from the Distinguished Senator’s (Abe’s) ward (in Bera-Ogoni in Gokana LGA), we will make available to the press, documented evidence that even in his (Abe’s) ward, there was election.
“So, the issue of a contradiction does not even arise, because you cannot be talking about contradiction, when there is an allegation and a fact. He (Abe) has to prove that there was no election in Rivers State on Saturday. He who alleges must prove.”
Dogo stated that he and members of the committee put in their best in the discharge of their duties, without taking sides, as people of integrity.