Senator Abe charges APC councilors on recovering Rivers in 2019

The representative of the Rivers South East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Ngei Abe, has charged councillors elected under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 general elections in the state to strategise on taking back the government of Rivers State in the 2019 elections.

Senator Abe who was speaking when the Rivers Councillors Forum of the 8th Assembly under the APC from the 319 wards of the state visited him to congratulate him on his emergence as Senator representing Rivers South East, in Port Harcourt, said he sympathized with them over their alleged marginalisation as councillors under the current administration of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the state.

The Senator said that the best way that their marginalisation could be addressed adequately was if the APC recovered the Government House from the PDP in 2019, saying that all hands should be on deck for the task ahead.

Senator Abe who is the Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) condemned the current government in the state for being “very myopic in the distribution of the resources of the state exclusively for people in PDP,” explaining that every Rivers person had a right to the resources of the state.

He stated further that although the PDP was the ruling party, the resources of the state could get to other parties and other non-politicians alike, regretting that the state government “did not consider anybody a Rivers man except you are in PDP.

“As we speak here today, there are lecturers at Rivers State University, UST, who have not been paid. They have been denied their just entitlement on the suspicion that they came on board during the APC era therefore they could be affiliated to the APC,” he said.

Senator Abe, also a former Secretary to Rivers State Government, further alleged that some civil servants who were employed under the administration of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi “were not paid their salaries for the reason that APC administration employed them, not minding the fact that they are Rivers people.

He said although their matter was in Court, which he said he would not comment on, it was only an APC government in Rivers State that would address their issues adequately and urged them to double their efforts in ensuring that the party wins the 2019 general elections.

The Senator said: “The Rivers State government is supposed to be for all Rivers people regardless of your party.

If there is something that is 100 and the party in power takes 70, at least 30 should be able to slip out of the system and enter into the hands of people from other parties; people who are not in any party and all that. That is how it was.

“But now, the government in the state is deliberately locking the system against members of the APC. In a lot of local government areas, if you are APC member, they won’t pay you your salary. That is what is going on.

“The government should not be run that way because no matter which party is in power, the government is for all of us and so, deliberately shutting out people completely the way it is being done in this system because of their political affiliation is not only unconstitutional, it is totally wrong,” according to the Senator.

He berated those who were dissuading the councilors from visiting him, pointing out that such action was against the interest of the party.

He, however, commended them for turning out en masse to visit and congratulate him on his victory in the legislative re-run election in the state.