Chief Eze Chukwumeka Eze, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, has lampooned Senator Magnus Abe over his comment allegedly describing the APC governorship candidate in the state, Tonye Cole as a stranger.
Eze, in a statement in Port Harcourt on Thursday, said the former lawmaker’s “consistent outburst and insistence to govern Rivers State without a political platform is borne out of confusion, grossly misleading and skewed in blatant misconception.”
The erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP), said Abe’s governorship bid and the emergence and likely victory of Tonye Cole, at the polls in 2023 squarely qualify the former as a “celebrity clown of the Nigerian movie industry.”
He said the ex-lawmaker’s dreams of contesting the 2023 governorship election under the platform of the APC alongside Cole, who won the guber ticket of the party is deceit that would one day end.
Eze said Abe, having boycotted the governorship primaries of the party in the state and directing his followers to do the same for no justifiable reasons, has no business “nosing around the concerns of the party.”
He said although Abe is a qualified Legal Practitioner he seems to be ignorant of the provisions of the Electoral Act for anyone to emerge as a candidate, as such a person must have participated in a primary election, which, Eze said he never participated in any political party primaries.
According to the chieftain, “With the conclusion of the elective primaries of the parties and the close of the deadline for submission of the candidates for gubernatorial elections based on the guidelines issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the process for the 2023 General Elections in Nigeria has commenced in earnest.
“Section 84 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 provides that “A political party seeking to nominate candidates for elections under this Act shall hold primaries for the aspirants to all elective positions which shall be monitored by the Commission”.
“Section 84 (13) of the Act further provides that “Where a political party fails to comply with the provisions of this Act in the conduct of its primary, its candidates for election shall not be included in elections for the particular position in issue”.
“These provisions and others in the Electoral Act aim to ensure that only candidates who win duly conducted primaries are presented for elections. Unlike in previous electoral law, the new law authorizes INEC to disqualify candidates who did not emerge from a duly conducted primary which INEC monitored.
“For Abe to continue with his long-held deceit, misleading and misinforming the youths over his inordinate and ill-conceived governorship ambition to the extent of asking them to mobilize themselves in what he teemed Project SMA 2023 under the APC, simply puts him in the status of a superstar in the Clown business and on that note, I wish to urge the Nollywood to engage him as a matter of urgency as he has the talent to improve the industry and make it compete favorably with Bollywood and other sister industries.”
