Why I won’t dump APC, by Abe

Former Secretary to Rivers State Government Senator Magnus Abe is a former governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In this interview with  Southsouth Bureau Chief BISI OLANIYI, he speaks on the failed reconciliation in the chapter and why he will not dump the party.

 

What is responsible for the unending crisis in the Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC)?

Nigerians are aware that the crisis in the APC in Rivers State has its origin in the unconstitutional decision of the leader of the party, Rotimi Amaechi, to summarily expel me and other leaders of the party seen as sympathetic to my governorship ambition, for no discernible reason.

Amaechi announced this publicly at the meeting of APC stakeholders held at the Dome Event Centre, Peter Odili Road, Port Harcourt, stating that Senator Abe and all those sympathetic to him must leave the party and he went further to state that he was ready to destroy the party in Rivers state to achieve the objective, despite the pleas of many leaders present at the meeting.

In fact, Mr. Loolo Ibieneye told Amaechi that the path he chose was not only unconstitutional, but would lead the party to disaster.

Incidentally, that was the last day that Rivers APC members sat together in unity, with Amaechi present.

The directive to unilaterally exclude party members from all party activities, without due process, is the origin and the root of the crisis in the Rivers state chapter of APC.

Indeed, prior to the troubled congresses, the then Rivers Chairman of APC, Chief Ibiamu Ikanya, called an all-inclusive stakeholders/State Executive Committee (SEC) meeting of the party, where all the issues were amicably resolved, including the distribution of forms to all aspiring party members.

An all-inclusive committee was set up to implement the resolutions of the meeting. As soon as Amaechi was informed of the move, he not only dissolved the committee, but he voided the efforts and consensus decisions reached by the entire leadership.

Amaechi directed that in keeping with his earlier directives at the Dome, members of the party perceived as sympathetic to Senator Abe be excluded from the congresses and denied the forms they paid for.

The disenfranchised members: Ibrahim Umar and 22 others, went to court, they rightfully secured an injunction on the facts, which Amaechi again directed the party to disobey. The rest as they say is history.

In an unprecedented sponsored media campaign, the facts were buried and recrafted, one Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a hired publicist for Amaechi, became the face of the attempt to rewrite history.

Those who went to court were accused of working for Governor Nyesom Wike and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The courts were promoted as Wike’s supermarkets. Some of Amaechi’s publicists such as Oby Ndukwe and Lucky Worluh went as far as accusing me of plotting with the Vice-President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, to kill President Muhammadu Buhari and collecting billions of naira from Governor Wike and the PDP to destabilise the APC in Rivers state.

I was painted to the Nigerian public as a desperate politician, who destroyed his party, because of his personal ambition.

My integrity and my reputation remain my most valuable assets. If I lose them to the politics of hate and deceit, then I would have lost everything. I appeal to all men of goodwill to remember that all the gold on earth is worth nothing, if we lose our name.

What is actually your relationship with Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike?

Everybody in Nigeria knows that I know Governor Wike very well. We worked together in the politics of Rivers State. When he was Chairman of Obio/Akpor Local  Government Council of Rivers State, I was the Minority Leader of Rivers House of Assembly (1999 to 2003, as a member of All Peoples Party and later All Nigeria Peoples Party). It is not a secret that in Nigeria, it is the Houses of Assembly that exercises core supervisory jurisdiction, by law, over the local governments. So, we had a relationship.

He (Wike) later became Chief of Staff and I was Secretary to the State Government (when Amaechi was Rivers governor). We have a very close personal and family relationship, but in the course of our politics, we were in different political parties and we had our disagreements. In fact, we had a public fight, to the point where we took each other on publicly. It was not a hidden thing. Giving the nature of Nigerian politics, personal relationships were ruptured, as we went our different ways politically and it remains that way.

When I had my thanksgiving service in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the Archbishop (of Anglican Communion) who presided over the service, asked me if I had invited all the persons with whom I had issues and I said no, but he said I must invite all of them, including Governor Wike and Amaechi, stressing that one should not come to the house of God with a divided mind. So, I invited everybody across the country and people honoured the invitation, including Governor Wike, but transportation minister (Amaechi) did not honour the invitation, instead he chose the day to plan a parallel event in Bori-Ogoni, the headquarters of my senatorial district (Rivers Southeast). From then to now, I have had no personal contact or relationship with Governor Wike.

I am ready to meet with the Rivers governor, because he made a broadcast the other day about the Ogoni oilfields in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 11. It is not right for any Ogoni son to have responded publicly to what Governor Wike said in his broadcast. If the governor said that Rivers State government had acquired the oilfields and ready to give Ogoni communities a percentage in the oilfields, I do not think that Ogoni person should be the first person to condemn it.

I am interested in meeting with the Rivers governor to hear exactly what is happening, as far as the situation of Ogoni oilfields is concerned. So, I have no political relationship with Govermor Wike. Outside of meeting him at social occasions, I have not met him anywhere. I have not discussed politics with him. If he extends invitation to me, I will honour it, but politically, I am a member of the APC, while Governor Wike is a member of the PDP. That is where it stands. Anybody who has any alternate or contrary fact should take it before the courts.

What is the current state of the APC in Rivers State?

The party is still where it is. After we had all the issues in the courts that led to Rivers APC being excluded from the ballots, one expects that reasonable politicians will look for ways to put the party together. Whatever our anger or differences may be, we ought to try and look for a middle ground, so that our party can move forward, but rather than doing that, the transportation minister went ahead and set up a caretaker committee of his boys, which I will not recognise. I was not consulted, neither do I know of anybody who was consulted, before the caretaker committee was set up.

He (Amaechi) wanted to use his boys to organise fresh congresses, without considering the fate of APC members who bought forms for the previous congresses, but were disenfranchised. The issue is back in the courts.

How can unity be ensured in Rivers APC, ahead of 2023 elections?

APC set up a committee, headed by former Osun State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, to look into the issues. We appeared before the members of the committee. The day the committee members were to come to Port Harcourt, we were all there.

The Southsouth Zonal Vice Chairman of APC also came to Port Harcourt for reconciliation, we were all there, but some people are determined to rewrite history. If you are going about saying some leaders of PDP sponsored some chieftains of APC in Rivers state, that is not peace.

People having ambition or trying to contest for positions in a political party is one of the main reasons for setting up a political party. You cannot destroy the party. People can argue and quarrel, but they must try and work things out. You cannot continue to exclude some politicians in a party. A political party belongs to the members and the party should not be destroyed. For peace in the party, there must be understanding and respect for one another. We also need to have respect for the truth. These are the basic foundations on which true reconciliation and progress can be founded in any organisation, not just in the APC.

You represented Rivers Southeast Senatorial District in the 7th and 8th Senate. You were also a governorship aspirant on APC platform in 2015 and 2019. What next?

The most important office in any country is the office of the citizen. Every other thing is superfluous. I am a citizen of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The time that I held offices, other people did not hold offices. It did not stop them from contributing to Nigeria.

Great nations, great cities, great societies, great organisations are not created, they are not made, they are built. They are not built only by the leaders. Everybody who is desirous of being part of something great, must have knowledge that he has an obligation to make a contribution to building that greatness that he desires to leave and be part of.

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My hope, my desire, my aspiration is to see Nigeria as a great country. To see Rivers as a great state. To see Port Harcourt as a great city. I know that I have a responsibility to contribute to the building of the greatness that I so desire. If we desire to see the APC as a great party, we must be prepared to make sacrifices and to participate in buding the greatness within the desired organisation or society.

Today, I am not in office, but it does not mean that I am not a politician. It does not mean that I am not a Nigerian. It does not mean that my desire to see Nigeria as a great country or to see Rivers state as a prosperous, progressive and successful society terminates, because I am no longer a senator or I am not holding office.

I can support the persons who are holding office. I can contribute ideas. I can still work to help to make Nigeria, Rivers state and APC better. So, nobody should be worried by the fact that I am not holding office. Let us keep building Nigeria and Rivers state.

Why didn’t you agree to step down from the 2019 governorship race, in the interest of APC?

In early 2015, the then Rivers governor (Amaechi), called me privately, with Chief G.U. Ake (now late), who was then the Rivers Chairman of APC and Dr. Dakuku Peterside. Amaechi said he was going to pick one of us as the governorship candidate of APC in Rivers state and that whoever he did not pick should support the other. This dragged on for quite some time. At the end of the day, he (Amaechi) picked Peterside, which led to eruption in Rivers state. But for my quick intervention, Government House, Port Harcourt would have been destroyed on that day.

I mobilised for APC during the 2015 elections, I supported the party and its candidates. I almost lost my life.

When it came to 2019, Amaechi did not call me privately, he called me in front on my wife. One of the things he said was that the last time (in 2015), I did not support Peterside. I told Amaechi that it was a lie from the pit of hell and I stated that anybody who said so, would answer to it before God. That’s not politics and that’s not how to ask a politician not to run for office. Rather than it being an incentive for me not to run, that was why I ran and I would not stop. After the 2019 elections, I announced that the run was over.

It is not true that anybody called me in a meaningful manner, to engage me in the interest of the party. It was never done. If that had been done, I would have responded to it in that spirit.

There was a day that Asiwaju Bola Tinubu sent for both of us (Abe and Amaechi) and we were to meet and I came. I called my team, I met with them and we agreed to go for the meeting. On that day, Asiwaju was not able to make the meeting and the meeting never held.

The day we met with the National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, after I made my speech about the APC in Rivers state, Amaechi spent close to three hours, talking about me, he never mentioned APC in Rivers state and there was no concession or discussion about the fate of the party at that meeting.

What is your relationship now with Transportation Minister, Rotimi Amaechi?

I have no problem with Amaechi. Power has its challenges. It is difficult to communicate properly with some people in certain circumstances. So, it is better to let them be. When we are normal, we will be able to engage one another in a more mutually, respectful situation, but right now, I do not think that the mutually respectful foundation for communication exists.

You are a major stakeholder in the Niger Delta region. Does Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) need an Interim Management Committee (IMC), headed by an Ogoni person, Dr. Joi Nunieh, when the Senate has already screened and confirmed members of the new Board of the Federal  Government’s interventionist agency, nominated by President Muhammadu Buhari?

As far as I know, everybody that has turned up at the NDDC was on the instructions of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is constitutionally mandated to appoint people to the NDDC. Whenever he (President Buhari) appointed people in NDDC as acting, interim or whatever, we gave them support.

 

Even when some people came to NDDC’s corporate headquarters in Port Harcourt and they were boasting that they were appointed to deal with some of us, we did not go and say they should be removed. We did not campaign against them. We bore it as politicians, because we knew that they were appointed by the President.

So, in these current appointments in NDDC, nobody has said that the IMC members were not appointed by President Buhari. If there are other people who want to take over from the members of IMC, they should take their case to the President. When he appoints them, the other people too will go, but for anybody to see people appointed by the President, they have taken over office, they are carrying out their duties and then begin to be promoting irresponsible noises, I do not think that is right.

For now, the persons that have been appointed by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to run the affairs of NDDC, are Dr. Joi Nunieh (Acting Managing Director), Dr. Cairo Ojougboh (Acting Executive Director, Projects), and Chief Ibanga Bassey Etang (Acting Executive Director, Finance and Administration). This is not the first time that it was done. When Mene Derek (an Ogoni man) was removed as NDDC’s Executive Director, Finance and Administration, an acting management team of three persons was set up and the members took office. There was no noise then. Is it because Nunieh is a woman?

I want to plead with Niger Delta people, let us conduct ourselves in a manner that shows that we understand the challenges that we are facing.

There are stories about NDDC that some persons were collecting over N1 billion monthly and an individual having 300 contracts. Why do we leave the things that have not made the commission to make progress? President Buhari has ordered forensic audit of NDDC between 2001 and 2019. Let us make sure that the forensic audit is properly conducted. Why are we worrying about who is seated in NDDC? Somebody must sit there. In the interest of the Niger Delta, let people of the region not behave in a manner that will make other Nigerians feel that we do not know what we are doing.

President Buhari has appointed Nunieh, Ojougboh and Etang. He has the constitutional right to do so. If the President is going to set up another board, he still has the constitutional right to do so. Our own is to make sure that the persons who are appointed understand that we the people of the Niger Delta, our eyes are now open and that we want service from those that are sent to NDDC to serve us. We should give support to the Nunieh-led IMC and to insist and demand that the members of IMC do what is right, in the interest of the Niger Delta. They should not be distracted.

Are you in support of the call for the sack of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, over his roles in the developments in NDDC?

Are we the ones who appointed Senator Akpabio? President Buhari appointed him. Calls for Senator Akpabio’s sack are diversionary and not in the interest of the Niger Delta. The persons that the President has appointed, let us give them support.

 

‘I have no political relationship with Govermor Wike. Outside of meeting him at social occasions, I have not met him anywhere. I have not discussed politics with him. If he extends invitation to me, I will honour it, but politically, I am a member of the APC, while Governor Wike is a member of the PDP’