Onyedi Gabriel, Port Harcourt
South-South Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has asked persons sponsoring media attacks against the Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, to leave the former Rivers State governor alone.
Eze in a statement at the weekend also called on the anti-Amaechi campaigners to stop dragging the name of the Appeal Court President, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem into the state’s APC matter pending in court.
Eze, an erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP), flayed a group, Justice Watchdog, for its recent publication aginst Amaechi and Mensam, describing its members as faceless.
He said the scheme was an obvious brainchild of the anti-Amaechi camp in Rivers, whose pursuit of private vendetta ruined the victory of the Rivers APC at the 2019 polls and sacrificed meritocracy on the altar of mediocrity.
He dismissed the claims that Amaechi planned to influence the outcome of the pending Appeal Court judgement.
He told sponsors of the smear campaign that it remained within the exclusive preserve of the President of the Court of Appeal to transfer any matter to any division of the court in the interest of justice.
He stressed that the minister was too preoccupied with serious national assignments to meddle in other issues outside his jurisdiction, especially matters touching on the sacred temple of justice.
He said, “No amount of campaign of calumny and media war against Justice Dongban-Mensem and the Judiciary will cure the fatality of anti-Amaechi’s empty and ill-fated prayers”.
He dismissed the group’s claim that the National Working Committee of the APC recognised Igo Aguma as CTC chairman and wondered when and how such recognition was made.
He said, “Assuming such recognition was ever given as claimed, it does not confer omnipotence and immunity on Aguma’s chairmanship that he should be shielded from necessary disciplinary actions.
“I called on Senator Magnus Abe and Aguma to respect the decision of Mr. President and the National Executive Council of the APC and withdraw all matters against the APC pending before the courts in the spirit of genuine reconciliation if they truly wish to continue as members of the Rivers APC.
“I describe Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem as a reflection of fairness and appeal to the President of the Court of Appeal to save the state judiciary from the claws of corrupt officials, who leverage on their exalted sacred offices to mortgage justice and stock public aspirations in limbo.”