The Peoples Democratic Party Campaign Council in Rivers State has alleged that a former Minister of Transportation, RotimiAmaechi, is working secretly for the presidential candidate of the PDP, AtikuAbubakar.
This is as the state PDP campaign council said it had identified Amaechi as a member of the “wicked cabal” punishing Nigerians with the current fuel and naira scarcity.
The Director of Publicity and Communications, Rivers State PDP-CC, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, stated this in a statement issued in Port Harcourt on Monday.
Nwuke challenged Amaechi, a former Governor of Rivers State, to deny that he was not part of those making life unbearable and a nightmare for citizens.
He further alleged that Amaechi recently reconciled with members of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in the state and has since been working secretly and holding meetings with Atiku and others in the cabal.
The statement partly read, “Nigerians have been forced to go through the eye of the needle in search of money with which to meet their daily needs and feed their families.
“Unknown to most Nigerians, the vicious cabal that has made it a duty to inflict pain and suffering on the rest of us has done so deliberately in order to influence the outcome of the forthcoming elections.
“As a political party, we have gathered credible intelligence which supports the view that the leader of the APC, Rt. Hon Rotimi Amaechi, is a member of the cabal that has caused the naira crisis as well as the fuel scarcity and brought untold hardships on ordinary Rivers people and other Nigerians.
“Only recently, he reconciled with members of the presidential campaign council in Rivers State as part of the carefully woven plot. We equally know for certain that he has been holding secret meetings with the PDP presidential candidate.”
Continuing, Nwuke said, “We challenge the former Minister of Transportation to deny this fact. Let him deny that he is one of those that are working with Alhaji AtikuAbubakar at this time to undermine the genuine aspiration of the people of southern Nigeria.”
He dismissed claims made by the APC governorship candidate, Tonye Cole, that Governor Nyesom Wike was making moves to join his party through the back door.
He said the comment attributed to Cole had portrayed him as a political neophyte, saying if Wike had such plan, he would dished the PDP a long time ago.
“The governor has maintained a principled position that he will not leave a party that he helped to build. The stance of Governor Nyesom Wike since the crisis erupted in the party at the national level is well known.
“He has publicly maintained a principled position that he will not leave a party that he helped to build. That position has not changed.
“Wike has insisted that he and members of the G5 would remain in the PDP in order to ensure that the tenets which made the party a destination of choice are not destroyed by power mongers and selfish politicians who have little faith in the unity and stability of Nigeria.”
The statement stressed that Wike was “going nowhere” and had “no plan today, tomorrow or in the near future” to defect from the PDP to the APC “through the front or back door.”
“Given his rabid comments,” the statement continued, “Cole has demonstrated a poor understanding of how politics works. This explains why many in the state, including politicians, think that he is an outsider.
“We believe that the APC candidate is a poor judge of circumstances, permanent interests and intervening variables in the polity which shape the present as well as the future of states and nation-states.
“From all indications, candidates of the Rivers PDP are poised to win on February 25th and again on March 11, 2023. And Rivers people who support our great party and its leadership are working tirelessly to ensure that victory is won.
“We see his comments pertaining to Governor Wike as the product of a political neophyte whose intentions as a Southerner bear huge question marks.”
But in a swift reaction, the Amaechi-led APC in the state described the PDP and Governor Wike as “confused and clueless”.
The state APC Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwauju, pointed out that all their allegations against Amaechi had collapsed like a pack of cards.
Nwauju stated, “Nigerians can now see through the web of lies, evil machinations and sophistry of the clueless PDP administration in Rivers State as the continuous campaigns of calumny against former Governor Amaechi keep falling like a pack of cards.
“Not too long ago, Governor Wike who is the leader of the faction of PDP in Rivers State that authored these false claims, was seen on live television boasting that the former transportation minister no longer has access to Aso Rock Villa.
“Today, the same faction of the PDP shamelessly names the former Governor as a member of the cabal.
“Should we take such persons seriously? Nigerians can easily see through these tantrums as claptraps by failed politicians who have made wrong political permutations and are now struggling to point fingers.
“Even the author of the statement does not believe in what he signed off.”
