Rivers state All Progressives Congress has warned former national chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, Uche Secondus, the former minister of transportation, Abiye Sekibo and other leaders of PDP in the state that they could not join the APC through the back door.
The caretaker committee chairman of the party in Rivers state, Tony Okocha handed down the warning in Abuja on Friday while reacting to Thursday’s media briefing by some PDP chieftains who declared support for President Bola Tinubu and Governor Simlaye Fubara
Present at the PDP briefing included Abiye Sekibo, Uche Secondus; former Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Austin Opara; Celestine Omehia, former deputy governor of the state, Tele Ikuru; Senator Lee Maeba; and former Secretary to the Rivers State Government, Gabriel Pidomson, among others.
Okocha, who described the Sekibo-led PDP group as crisis merchants, said if the group felt concerned, it would have been honourable for them to seek solutions to the problems rather than constituting themselves as snitches and fifth columnists in the state.
Okocha said that the APC is open to accepting new members from the other parties into its fold, based on the mandate to his committee by the APC National Working Committee, but warned that such a move must be done legally.
Faulting the pledged support for the President during the press conference in Port Harcourt, Okocha said: “If the mid-night pseudo lovers of Mr President as shown in the text under critique, now are convinced that President is abundantly fit and proper to preside over Nigeria and that his ten months in office has provided Renewed Hope for an eldorado for Nigerians and choose to recant their hitherto unsavoury and unprintable toxics against the President, they should follow the proper channels allowed for porting or decamping to a new party.
“This approach of brow-beating and blackmailing they intend to use is not fashionable at all.
“No sane host tolerates a guest who attempts to enter his/her house, through the window when the door is open.
“When have they repented and withdrawn their suits in court, challenging the Powers of the resident to mediate in the political crisis in Rivers State?
“Have they repented from emboldening Governor Fubara to disrespect Mr. President by refusing to implement all the indices on the 8-point Presidential Proclamation, as panacea to the political crisis in Rivers State, which by their actions, they have continued to fuel?”
The APC leader said the fortune of the party had continued to rise in the state and challenged the Rivers State, Governor, Sim Fubara, to test his popularity by conducting a Local Government election in the state to know his political strength.
“He (Fubara) should go and conduct local government elections if he knows he is popular with the people. He should go and test the waters to see if the crowd they have been carrying are not rented. We know he doesn’t have the people.”
Okocha lamented that, “under Governor Fubara “Rivers State is more than drifting to a pariah state, to atrophying into abysmal oblivion, to say the least.”
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