PDP Harvests APC Members‎ in Rivers

While political parties prize cohesion and unity, the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State seems to have discarded these virtues, Davidson Iriekpen writes

With the 2019 general election fast approaching, one state where the people are likely to see a no contest situation when elections come is Rivers where the members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) are currently defecting in droves to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Investigation by THISDAY revealed that after the December 10, 2016 rerun legislative elections till date, over 250,000 APC members have defected to the PDP.

Dissatisfied with its leadership, members of the party are leaving the party massively thereby giving the ruling party in the state a fertile ground to govern without opposition. Many analysts believe that with elections fast approaching, it would be difficult for the opposition in the state to secure victory in any of the elective positions.

One of the causes of disaffection in the APC is the feeling of abandonment as supporters of the party feel that after the elections and the rerun elections, nothing was heard from those who won as they all relocated to Abuja with their families.
“How can we call ourselves APC members when leaders who got jobs in Abuja and Lagos seem to be representing themselves. They have left us to fend for ourselves,” lamented one member who did not want his name in print, adding that it was time for them to take their destinies into their hands.

The second confusion in the APC is about the choice of governorship standard bearer for 2019. At the centre of the raging storm rocking and threatening to tear the party apart are the Minister of Transportation and former governor of the state, Chibuike Amaechi; Senator Magnus Abe, representing Rivers South East senatorial district; and the party’s governorship candidate in 2015 and Director General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Dakuku Peterside.

While Amaechi favours Peterside for 2019 governorship seat, Abe whose relationship with minister was almost marred by the imposition of Peterside as APC governorship candidate in the 2015 election, has argued that party primary election should be the sole determining factor to decide who should emerge as the party’s standard-bearer in 2019.
On one side of the divide are those who think that the only way to stem the rancour and acrimony within the party is to allow internal democracy to determine who gets the governorship ticket.
On the contrary, are party members loyal to Amaechi who contended that his choice should be allowed to stay being the leader of the party in the state. But a supporter of Abe who pleaded anonymity disclosed that the APC would merely be galloping towards disintegration if Amaechi insists on imposition with regards to the governorship candidate of the party.

“Honestly, we are not saying that Abe should be given the ticket without any contestation. Anybody who wants to emerge as the party’s governorship candidate should do so through the ballot. The era of imposition is over. We will not tolerate what happened in 2014 to repeat itself in 2018,” he said.
Capitalising on this disaffection, the PDP last year commenced a massive wooing of APC members. Today, former commissioners, special advisers, special assistants, local government chairmen and who’s who in politics in the state have all defected to the PDP.

Very frequently, some APC members do visit the state governor, Nyesom Wike to pledge their loyalty due to his performance. The governor who has shown no bias in the distribution of infrastructural facilities, has extended good roads to even the door steps of many of the opposition members. This has won his party more members.
It is believed that a few members of the APC in the House of Representatives met with the leadership of the PDP in the state on how to accommodate them should they decide to join the party. The APC lawmakers, who are concerned about their political future, feel that their return to the National Assembly would depend on how far they support their state governor.

Perhaps, the most celebrated was when a former Chief of Staff Government House, Chief Emeh Glory Emeh, defected to the PDP. Emeh, who had served the state in various capacities including Senior Special Assistance on Media and Strategy, Commissioner for Commerce and Industry, Commissioner for Transport and Aviation during the former Governor Peter Odili’s administration, is generally described as political engine room and strategist.
Before his defection, the leadership of PDP in the state was said to have mounted enormous pressure on the Ikwerre-born chartered accountant and lawyer to come back to the party which they described as his political home. No doubt the exit of Emeh has seriously affected the fortunes of the party in the state due to his enormous political experience and exposure.

In the last two weeks, several highly placed individuals and groups from Ahoada-East, Abua/Odua, Emohua, Asari-Toru, Akuku-Toru, Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni, Port Harcourt, Obio/Akpor, Bonny, Ogoni as well as non-indigenes have pledged their support for the administration of Governor Nyesom Wike and the PDP, and denouncing APC in the state.
Last month, the few remnants of APC members in Rumuokparali, Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of the state defected to PDP. As a show of their surrender, the youths burnt a casket engraved with APC logo and handed over their brooms to the state PDP Chairman, Mr. Felix Obuah.

Also recently, Obuah was in Ubima in Ikwerre Local Government Area, the home of the Minister of Transportation and former governor, Rotimi Amaechi, to receive hundreds of members of the APC. While welcoming the new members from the APC to the PDP, the party chairman congratulated the bold step taken in spite of the intimidation and inducement by the former governor and other leaders of the APC. He reiterated that the PDP umbrella was large enough to accommodate both regular and returning members of the party, assuring all of equal opportunity and treatment as a responsible and well-meaning party founded on equity, justice and fair play.

Obuah further explained that with the current trend of defections in the state, Amaechi would be left with the carcass of the party, appealing to the remnants to make hay while the sun shines so as to be part of the various development programmes and initiatives of the Wike-led government in the state. He advised the former governor and other APC leaders in the state to admit their failure and defeat and take steps towards joining the performing Wike in giving the people of the state a new lease of life. PDP, he said, was willing to forgive and re-admit any genuinely repentant APC leader and members who are ready to help build a better state, assuring that in the coming days, more of the leftover APC members would join the PDP fold in the state.

When THISDAY sought to know why people are leaving the APC in droves, a competent source close to the party said they were fed up with the attitude of its leaders in the state for lack of leadership and organisation. The source who pleaded anonymity, said the leaders of the party were disconnected from their followers.
“How do you expect us to cope with leaders who are either in Abuja, Lagos or Singapore, leaving us to suffer? As we speak, we don’t know where the chairman of the party in the state is. We heard that he resumes and closes in one of the federal government agencies in Lagos and leaving us in the doldrums here. We have to take our destinies in our own hands,” the source said.

The source said they were tired of polarisation of the party into three contending groups which is threatening the survival of the party in the state. He said things have so fallen apart in the party to the extent that the distribution of resources to individuals or groups are measured according to the perceived quantum of loyalty to any of the three factional leaders. He revealed that the degree of distrust and disaffection in the APC in the state could only be traced to lack of leadership and coordination.

Another party stalwart who craved for anonymity, said: “It is very unfortunate that APC is in this mess but I have no doubt that it will become very grave because, if you look, you will find that the party is made up of inexperienced men and women, while the experienced politicians are all in the PDP. That ordinarily should not have been a problem if not for the myopic and ‘dog eat dog’ situation in APC. The sorry situation of the APC in the state is the massive movement of party stalwarts, particularly very few experienced politicians who worked under former Governors Rufus Ada George and Peter Odili. Most of those concerned were products of the famous bulldozer of Rivers State politics, Chief Sergeant Awuse and Chief Bekimbo Soberekon, the flamboyant SPD governorship aspirant.

“The last straw that is set to break the camel’s back, and which is likely to drown and bury APC in the state with total finality was said to have been hatched in a meeting coordinated by a popular politician generally described as the technical strategist, and mathematical political manipulator from one of the upland local government areas. In that meeting, nine former commissioners and about 25 former office holders were in attendance. They were unanimous that time is ripe to make a movement and it will appear that survival of APC in Rivers State is now on a time machine,” the politician further explained.

But a top APC leader in the state dismissed the defectors, describing them as people with no character, credibility and integrity. The APC stalwart who did not want his name in print, said the party before 2019 would recover from all it has suffered.

Quote

One of the causes of disaffection in APC is the feeling of abandonment as supporters of the party feel that after the elections and the rerun elections, nothing was heard from those who won as they all relocated to Abuja with their families.