A group of All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders in Rivers has appealed to the party’s national leadership to intervene in the crisis rocking the state chapter, ahead of 2023 poll.
This is contained in a statement jointly signed by Mr. Tonte Amachree and Mr. Kelvin Obulo on behalf of the group on Sunday in Abuja.
“We are APC stakeholders in Rivers and have been loyal and active members of Magnus Abe group.
“Last Thursday, we were called by some people who are known leaders of Magnus Abe group in Opbo/North and Asari-Toru Local Government Areas (LGAs) to a meeting.
“The meeting had elite members of the Magnus Abe group in attendance,” the group said.
It added however, that some members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were also at the meeting.
“Some leaders of the PDP were also at the meeting and advised the group on how to proceed.
“They assured that the state government will ensure that the group case is reassigned to a judge that will do our bidding, after the former judge Justice Minnakiri recused himself from the case.
“Why will members of opposition party be in our meeting, we had earlier believed that we were working to put the party back together, but with the new development, we believe otherwise.
“How can PDP leaders be in our midst, encouraging us and even guiding us on how to pull down our party in the guise of making things right,” it said.
The group added: “We silently walked out of the meeting with the realisation that we have been fooled all along.
“We cannot fold our arms and allow some people to mislead us again, we cannot afford for our party not to be on the ballot again.
“We refuse to let 2019 repeat itself in 2023, we are calling on APC leadership to call Abe and his group to order, so that the state APC chapter will move forward.”