Stop Abusing Buhari over APC’s Woes, Abe Cautions Amaechi

Stop Abusing Buhari over APC’s Woes, Abe Cautions Amaechi

•  Lloyd insists statement his view, not Amaechi’s

By Ernest Chinwo in Port Harcourt

The Senator representing the Rivers South East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe, has called on the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, and his supporters in Rivers State to stop abusing President Muhammadu Buhari over the predicament of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state.

However, Director General of the Tonye Cole Campaign Organisation, Dr. Chidi Lloyd who made the allegation that President Buhari had abandoned APC in Rivers State charged Abe to leave Amaechi out of his views, adding,“ I want to state categorically that my views are my personal thoughts and should not be credited to any other person other than me.” He accused Abe of mischief.

 Abe said Nigerians had heard and ignored stories of the abuses rained on the President on a daily basis by those who were supposed to be his supporters and promoters in Rivers State.

He, in a statement issued yesterday in Port Harcourt by his spokesperson, Parry Benson, recalled that during the party’s Presidential campaign in Port Harcourt, not a kind word was said about the President for his numerous achievements in Rivers State.

Abe, who was reacting to comments by the Director-General of the Amaechi/Cole campaign, Lloyd, on a live TV programme on Thursday, said the habit of blaming everybody for the party’s woes must stop.

The statement reads, “I was visibly shocked when Hon. Chidi Lloyd, the Director-General of the Amaechi/Cole campaign went on Channels TV to openly abuse the President and blamed President Buhari for the electoral challenges facing the APC in Rivers State.

“This is most unfortunate. The habit of blaming everyone else for our woes must stop immediately. We had a needless and senseless power tussle in the party even when everyone agreed that the minister was the leader, yet that was Senator Abe’s fault, (because Senator Abe has a gubernatorial ambition as if there is any member of a political party in Nigeria without an ambition).

“APC members in Rivers State went to court for a minor issue that could have been resolved internally in 10 minutes, they were accused of being sponsored by Governor Wike.

“The APC leadership went to physically attack the courts and openly disobeyed court orders and the courts responded by axing the candidates for being products of that disobedience. The judges were accused of being PDP and working for Wike.

“Now you have gone into an election for which you are clearly ill-prepared, and yet the president gave you everything. Rivers APC had NDDC, Railway, NPA, Shippers Council; Ministry of Transportation, Police, Army, Air Force, DSS and yet you could not win because the INEC REC is PDP. INEC Chairman is PDP. Haba!”

 The Senator further charged: “Now we are blaming the President, is the President also working with Wike? If we had taken time to remind Rivers people of the uncommon love that Buhari has shown to Rivers people in the Ogoni clean-up, the Bodo-Bonny Road, approval for new higher institutions in Rivers State, appointments of our sons and daughters into positions of trust and so on.

“We would have made more sense to Rivers people than the failed campaign for personal supremacy by the leader of the party in the state. The president even went as far as risking his reputation and integrity to support the APC in Rivers State more than any other state in Nigeria.

“In playing our usual blame game let us leave President Buhari out of it and focus on the real issues facing the party in Rivers State.”

A statement by Lloyd titled, ‘Take Amaechi Out Of My Personal Views, I am An Adult And I am Responsible for My Actions And Inactions’, insisted that “As a stakeholder in the politics of  Rivers State, I feel sad  that a collaboration of Senator Magnus Abe and Governor Wike and their accomplices in the Rivers State Judiciary denied us so much in power structure of Rivers State. Whereas, it is an incontrovertible fact that Magnus Abe was collecting huge sums of money and a Land Cruiser jeep, including payment of legal fees,  from Governor Wike to pull the rug off the feet of the APC, it is even more annoying that Magnus Abe did everything under the sun to stop President Buhari from being re-elected. It is on record that when we were working round the clock to ensure we re-elected President Buhari, Magnus Abe addressed a team of 23 Coordinators across the 23 LGAs in his camp to go to their LGAs and instruct their supporters to vote for Atiku instead of President Buhari and they did.

“I want to state here that no reasonable member of the APC in Rivers State feels happy over what is happening in Rivers State of which Magnus Abe is part of. Magnus Abe and Wike sat down with Obo Effanga, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Rivers State and drew a list of Returning Officers and Collation Officers. Magnus Abe nominated Dr. Peter Medee, a member of the PDP as the Returning Officer of Emohua LGA, my LGA to work in favour of Wike.

“Magnus Abe should take his sanctimonious demeanour to the dogs. As the days go by, more and more Rivers people and indeed Nigerians are getting to know that Abe is a man without honour.  Today, the same Abe who joined forces with anti-Buhari Senators led by Senator Saraki is acting like he believes in President Buhari than the rest of us. Where was Abe when only 10 APC Senator stood out for President on the floor of the Senate?

When President Buhari was away for medical treatment, the same Abe was in nocturnal meetings planning how to force President Buhari out of office as if he was God who gives health.

 “Every true Nigerian will agree with me that President Buhari’s emergence and subsequent re-election is the best thing that has ever happened to Nigeria. I am a full supporter of President Buhari and I am doing that without regrets. My statement may have sounded harsh, I regret it and take responsibility for that. I am sorry. I spoke in anger because of the collusion of INEC and Wike in Rivers State Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections.”

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