River’s Crisis: Orchestrated to frustrate, ridicule Tinubu – Okocha

By Tom Okpe

The River State Care-taker Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Tony Okocha has revealed that the political wranglings in the State is orchestrated to frustrate and ridicule President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the ruling Party.

He also said this is with collaboration, with the ruling Party in the State, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, led by Similaye Fubara, as part of a broader design to frustrate the reelection of President Tinubu in 2027.

Recall that a Rivers State High Court had on Monday, last week, sacked the Care-taker Committee, led by Okocha, and in its place, reinstated Emeka Beke as Chairman.

However, the National Working Committee NWC of the APC on Thursday, after its meeting, declared that the Okocha-led Caretaker Committee of the party, remains the only recognized administrative body of the Party in the State.

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But, addressing journalists at the Party National Secretariat, Buhari House on Friday in Abuja, Okocha said Emeka Beke and one Barr Iheanyichukwu Dike had long been suspended from the State Working Committee, SWC on allegations of anti-party activities.

He said the APC was never part of the said suit and that only its National Chairman, Dr Abdullahi Ganduje was listed, saying it was wrong for the trial judge to have made orders on parties who were never joined in the suit.

“I thought it is necessary that at every twist and turn, Nigerians and the world should know about how our Party, the APC in River’s State is fairing.

“You would have heard some few days back, precisely, 12th August 2024, that the court sitting in the State, dissolved the Care-taker Committee and enthroned the dissolved Chairman and the Legal Adviser of the party.

“The other time I spoke with you, I said the trial judge was out for a hatchet job. One of the key documents that I have is the letter, a petition that we wrote against the judge. We wrote a petition against him on the 2oth of March, 2024. That letter was in March and judgement was in August, remember, in that letter, we alleged that the judge is bias.

“When a judge is accused of bias, on a particular matter, all he needs to do, is rescue himself, and hands off. It was clear we had all the facts and figures. Those who contrive him into that contract, we were with them albinitio. But they never came back to us. It is politics.

“When they came back to us, they told me clearly if there is anything you can do to stop this judge from delivering this judgement, you should do, but that, there is nothing on earth, we will do, that will change the man’s opinion,” he said.

Okocha said the Court judgement n Monday didn’t come as a surprise to him as he was aware of the out come, from the judge’s body language.

“It didn’t sound strange to me. Nobody got perturbed. You saw what we did on Tuesday. We are still out for President Tinubu. We described it, Tinunu support rally under the auspices of coalition of ‘Renewed Hope’ family in River state. What is the priority of the Judge in a judgement that he was making order against the APC,” he queried.

“APC was not a party in the suit. How do you bring somebody who is not a party in its suit, and make an order that will affect the person?

“You know well that, this is an abnormality. They deliberately, refused to include the APC. The reason is that they know if they include APC in the suit the matter can no longer go on at the State High Court. It would have gone to the Federal High Court. They may not have hard the grip of what they now did at the State level, which is supermarket of the Governor of Rivers state,” he added.