Okenyi Kenechi
The senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Magnus Abe, has said that he feels insulted whenever the minister of transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi says that the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike is using him.
Abe during a press statement in his office in Port Harcourt on Friday said that as the Secretary to the state government under the minister as governor, the minister could not use him let alone Wike now that he is a senator.
He said that in terms of age, he is older than Wike, adding that Wike is his junior at the bar and out of principle, he can’t stoop low to be used by the governor.
According to him:” I have tried as much as possible for us to keep our dirty linings out of public domain but Amaechi should not open his mouth again to say that wike is using me.
“Amaechi as a governor couldn’t use me. If Amaechi likes doing what is wrong and is crushing over people, he should understand that the party and the government belong to everybody.
“If he repeats the assertion that Wike is using me in public, I will give over 8 instances of instructions which he (Amaechi) gave to me as a governor and I refused because they are in conflict with my personal principles”
Abe said that Amaechi is staging personal actions without against everyone without first accepting that his actions led to the issues that ravaged the party.
He explained that the minister forgot that the bulk of the party members were people who refused to follow Goodluck Jonathan as a sitting president.
He said: “If they could not follow a sitting president, why should they obey the order of a minister that anyone who wants to contest governorship position of the party in the state should leave the party?”
Abe said that the bulk of persons in the state know who started the crisis.
He said that Amaechi is not on the ballot, stressing that his attempts to crush the courts and INEC is unnecessary.
He said that what is important at the moment as politicians are to fashion a way forward.
The senator said that Amaechi as the leader of the party in the state should accept the responsibility of what is happening in the state’s chapter of the All Progressives Congress, adding that as a leader, he defied all warnings and sank the ship of the party.
On the position of the party in the state, he said that the Supreme Court judgement sealed the aspirations of Tonye Cole and the candidates of the indirect primaries.
He added that the Appeal Court does not have the power to decide on the issue that the Supreme Court has finished with: “No Appeal Court can stay the judgement of the Supreme Court. That issue is done with and Amaechi needs to explain to his supporters that as far as Nigeria is concerned, no court can reopen that matter again”
“The minister knows that the aspirations of those he sponsored are dead. He as a leader took this party to where we are now. He should accept responsibility instead of blaming wike”
“The only issues we are pursuing now is that the products of our direct primaries should be accepted by both the party and INEC as the authentic candidates of the party”
