Tony John, Port Harcourt

The Senator representing Rivers South-East District in the National Assembly, Magnus Ngei Abe has called on the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi and his supporters in Rivers State to stop abusing President Muhammadu Buhari over the predicament of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State.

He said that Nigerians have of course heard and ignored stories of the abuses rained on the President on a daily basis by those who are supposed to be his supporters and promoters in Rivers State.

Abe in a statement issued in Port Harcourt by his spokesperson, Parry Saroh Benson recalled that during the party’s presidential campaign in Port Harcourt, not a kind word was said about the President for his numerous achievements in the State.

Senator Abe who was reacting to comments by the Director-General of the Tonye Cole campaign, Hon. Chidi Loyd on a live TV programme on Thursday, saying such habit of blaming everybody for the party’s woes must stop.

The statement reads, “This is most unfortunate. The habit of blaming everyone else for our woes must stop immediately. We had a needless and senseless power tussle in the party even when everyone agreed that the minister was the leader, yet that was Senator Abe’s fault, because Senator Abe has a gubernatorial ambition as if there is any member of a political party in Nigeria without an ambition.

“APC members in Rivers State went to court for a minor issue that could have been resolved internally in ten minutes, they were accused of being sponsored by Governor Wike. The APC leadership went to physically attack the Courts and openly disobeyed Court orders and the Courts responded by axing the candidates for being products of that disobedience. The judges were accused of being PDP and working for Wike.

“Now you have gone into an election for which you are clearly ill-prepared, and yet the president gave you everything. Rivers APC had NDDC, Railway, NPA, Shippers Council; Ministry of Transportation, Police, Army, Air Force, DSS and yet you could not win because the INEC REC is PDP. INEC Chairman is PDP, haba!

“Now we are blaming the President, is the President also working with Wike? If we had taken time to remind Rivers people of the uncommon love that Buhari has shown to Rivers people in the Ogoni cleanup, the Bodo-Bonny Road, approval for new higher institutions in Rivers State, appointments of our sons and daughters into positions of trust and so on”.

The Senator further said, “We would have made more sense to Rivers people than the failed campaign for personal supremacy by the leader of the party in the state. The president even went as far as risking his reputation and integrity to support the APC in Rivers State more than any other state in Nigeria. In playing our usual blame game let us leave President Buhari out of it and focus on the real issues facing the party in Rivers State,” Abe stated.

While calling on Abe to leave Amaechi out of his comments, Chidi Llyod said

“As a stakeholder in the politics of  Rivers State, I feel sad  that a collaboration of Senator Magnus Abe and Governor Wike and their accomplices in the Rivers State Judiciary denied us so much in power structure of Rivers State. Whereas, it is an incontrovertible fact that Magnus Abe was collecting huge sums of money and a landcrussier jeep, including payment of legal fees,  from Governor Wike to pull the rug off the feet of the APC, it is even more annoying that Magnus Abe did everything under the sun to stop President Buhari from being re-elected. It is on record that when we were working round the clock to ensure we re-elected President Buhari, Magnus Abe addressed a team of 23 Coordinators across the 23 LGAs in his camp to go to their LGAs and instruct their supporters to vote for Atiku instead President Buhari and they did.

“Every true Nigerian will agree with me that President Buhari’s emergence and subsequent re-election is the best thing that has ever happened to Nigeria. I am a full supporter of President Buhari and I am doing that without regrets. My statement may have sounded harsh, I regret it and take responsibility for that. I am sorry. I spoke in anger because of the collusion of INEC and Wike in Rivers State Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.”