The All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker Committee Chairman in Rivers state, Tony Okocha has described the court judgment that sacked his committee and the inflicted crisis in the party as plots to hijack the party in the state to frustrate the re-election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in 2027.
He noted that the main plan is to subordinate the party to the state government and render it inefficient to achieve the electoral success recorded in 2023 over the ruling party in the state.
A High Court in Port Harcourt, the state capital on Monday sacked the caretaker committee and in its place reinstated Chief Emeka Beke as Chairman.
APC National Working Committee however on Thursday declared the Okocha-led Caretaker Committee of the party as the only recognized administrative organ of the party in the state.
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Addressing reporters in Abuja on Friday, Okocha maintained that both Beke and one Barr. Iheanyichukwu Dike had no locus to institute that action, arguing that the duo has long been suspended from the State Working Committee (SWC) on allegations of engaging in anti-party activities.
Okocha also pointed out that APC was never part of the said suit and that only its National Chairman, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje was listed, insisting it was wrong for the trial judge to have made orders on parties who were never joined in the suit.
“Beke was imposed on the APC in Rivers state. I was a member, an ally of Senator Magnus Abe when he was fighting right inside the APC. The reason why we fought was ineptitude, political high-handedness, and imposition. Beke was a product of these three issues but was imposed by the then APC leader, Rotimi Amaechi.
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“The truth of the matter is that the party has a lot of intellectuals, professionals, and lecturers. We imagine how a person of low academic qualifications can preside over a meeting that some of us would attend but the APC leader then said they wanted somebody who had a street boy mentality. But the truth was that he wanted a surrogate, a stooge who would do his bidding. We fought but the APC leader was then a minister and his vestiges were here as leaders of the party.
“At the presidential primaries of the APC, Beke was the person who led the Rivers delegation of 56 delegates to vote for Rotimi Amaechi. That was how they scored 56 from the state.
“There is an intention to throw up Amaechi’s man and then he (Amaechi) becomes the APC leader and then uses the APC to fight Mr President in 2027. We will never allow that.
“Beke has shot himself in the leg by also referring to Amaechi as leader of the party in Rivers and the South-South. A man who refused to cooperate with President Tinubu then as presidential candidate, a man who worked for the opposition. Amaechi and his group aligned with PDP’s Atiku while Wike and his group from the PDP worked with us. After we won the election, Amaechi addressed the Press that Tinubu nominated the INEC Chairman and that the INEC Chairman worked with the current FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike when he was at TETFUND and Wike was the Education minister. That person cannot be the leader of the APC.
“As far as we are concerned, this is the court of first instance and we had known the end from the beginning. If we had known the end from the beginning, why should we be perturbed by that court judgment? We knew and that was why we went ahead with our programmes, the solidarity rally for Mr President.
“We are in court. We are law-abiding. At our level, even when a judgment is gotten from the toilet, we will abide by it. But we have applied to the court of appeal for a stay of execution and an invalidation of that judgment. We are not fighting fisticuffs. We will use the law and we are ready to go the whole hug to the Supreme Court.
“The Supreme Court had ruled before that the courts should not meddle in the internal affairs of the party. The task of picking a party chairman is an internal affair of the party”, he concluded.
