The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), loyal to the sacked Caretaker Committee Chairman, Tony Okocha, has announced its withdrawal from the October 5, 2024, local government elections.
This decision was made during an enlarged APC stakeholder meeting in Port Harcourt, attended by notable party loyalists, including Senator Wilson Ake and former Attorney-General Wogu Boms.
Okocha revealed that the party’s exclusion from a stakeholders’ meeting, where the election date was decided, prompted their decision to boycott the polls.
According to him, the APC was not part of the decision-making process and therefore cannot participate in an election that does not represent their interests.
The party said it has therefore taken legal action to halt the election processes, citing a deliberate plan to render them worthless.
Okocha stated, “The topical issue we have to discuss is the issue of APC contesting local government elections on October 5. That is one thing you would like to hear. We are in court and I will not speak in any matter that is in court. The most I can say to you is that the cause of action is to restrain the agencies that will conduct that election that they announced behind us.
“We are not part of the decisions to conduct an election on October 5. We went on air on t January 19 to tell the INEC chairman and the commission to convey the process of having that local government election at that time it was still within the ambits of the laws of the state because the law says three months to the expiration of the life of a chairman or tenure of the council that the national body should organise an election.
“That the process should commence, the table released and that the 21 days inside that three months election should hold.
“That law, as we speak, will not work. It will not work if you cannot conduct local government elections in Rivers State without a party like the APC. I know too that the PDP is not even in the race so what we see is just a drama.”
He further said, “The reason we went to court is not because we don’t have the numbers or that we don’t have the strength. I can assure you and you know for yourself that we have men and women that can contest any election and win.
“We are saying that the processes should be strengthened to be transparent so that we cannot just go and work on thorns and get ourselves hurt. I was only a whistle-blower because that election will not represent the interests and the opinions of those who will vote. It is already a stereotype.
“The handout had already been written. We have built party formations, we have built elections in this state. They are just coming in and they need to learn from us how we succeeded.
“So if you have to go by a good approach, you will not succeed. The day that they said they had a stakeholders meeting, I was not invited. The APC Rivers State was not invited to the stakeholders meeting where the decision for the October 5 election was taken.
“So we cannot participate in that election because there was a deliberate plan to make us worthless so we went to court. We are not saying we wouldn’t contest the election, our contention is until the process is in tandem with the law and that we as a party are also aware we were not carried along in the entire arrangement.”
In attendance at the meeting include loyalists of Senator Magnus Abe, such as Senator Wilson Ake and a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Wogu Boms.
