Okenyi Kenechi
The Senator representing Rivers South-East senatorial district in the National Assembly has said that the minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, started a problem that judicially would be impossible to solve.
Senator Magnus Abe, who was a guest on AIT political program, Kaakaki, on Monday, said that the minister’s camp rushed to national TV and announced that they will not obey the order of Rivers State high court which stopped the party from conducting the state congresses.
The senator, while answering questions during the program, said “The current situation of the primaries in Rivers State is that a high court of Rivers State has voided the entire primaries.
“That is the situation before the law as we speak. As far as the law is concerned and as far we are concerned , no indirect primaries held in Rivers State. But we held direct primaries in the state and we are asking the party to look into that.
“The congresses in Rivers State—as you know, this is not a crisis that started now. The crisis started when members of the party were denied the opportunity to participate in the congresses of their party.
“After they purchased tellers, they were not issued forms and the process was hijacked. So party members went to court on that matter and the party at the state level led by the Minister of Transportation decided to ignore the court.
“And indeed when the court gave orders and told them not to go ahead with the congresses at that time, they went on national TV to announce that they would not obey the court.
“And so that started a problem that judicially would be impossible to solve because the court now voided those first congresses, voided the second one and they continued to act with impunity as if those court orders did not matter.
“Now finally, the court has given a judgement and set aside everything done as a result of that process that stood on nothing ab initio.
“And the Supreme Court in dealing with an interlocutory application that came out of that has re-echoed the stand of the High Court in Port Harcourt that the APC in Rivers State on its present trajectory is on a suicide mission. So you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand”
Senator Abe also said that the valid state chapter of the party is the one led by Prince Peter Odike.
“As we speak now, there is a valid and subsisting judgement of the High Court which has not been set aside. Whether there is another litigation pending or you are appealing against that does not change the fact that as at this morning that we are appearing on this program, there is only one judgement that exists as far as the issues in Rivers State is concerned, and that judgement sets aside the primaries, the congresses and everything that was done by that illegitimate faction of the party. That is the position of the law this morning”
“That is the state of the law, and the funny thing is that the entire country was aware of this even before they went into the process.
“It was based on that, that the national chairman himself at a meeting of the National Executive Committee of the party announced that because of the legal situation in Rivers State, direct primaries would have to be used in Rivers State because the party could not use the structure there because of the ongoing litigation and the issue with the judiciary that was ongoing at the time. That was what he said at NEC”
“So in keeping with what he said at NEC, the valid state chapter of the party is the one led by Prince Peter Odike, because when the court voided that initial congress, the court said the status quo should remain, and the status quo was the Odike exco.
“Now, that is the only legal exco in the state as far as the law is concerned. And the legal exco did present to the National Working Committee of the party a memo requesting for Direct Primaries.
“And based on that they went ahead to organize direct primaries in keeping with what the National Chairman himself had announced at the National Executive Committee.
“All these results and processes are with the National Chairman and the National Working Committee of the party.
“It’s simply for them to accept that as the only legitimate primary that was conducted in Rivers State, and that is the true situation,” he said!
