The ousted All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker Committee Chairman in Rivers, Tony Okocha has alleged that former minister of transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, plans to hijack the party in the state to fight President Bola Tinubu in 2027.
Okocha made the allegation while addressing journalists at the national secretariat of the APC today.
He was reacting to the court judgment that sacked his committee on Monday, August 15.
According to him, 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 had 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.
His words: “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.
“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.”
