Caretaker Committee Chairman, Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, Igo Aguma, on Wednesday said that only the court could resolve the leadership crisis rocking the party in the state.
Aguma, who spoke in Port Harcourt, the state capital, insisted that Rivers chapter was not included in the recent decision of the party’s National Executive Council to dissolve all the structures of the party across the country and constitute caretaker committees.
The party chief said before the resolution of the NEC, the party already had a caretaker committee led by him as declared by the court, explaining that since no higher court had reversed the decision, he remained the acting chairman of the committee in the state.
He said, “The purported resolution by NEC was that the existing elected structures of the party at all levels be converted to caretaker committees and this was already in place in Rivers State under my legitimate caretaker committee, which is still a subject of various appeals while the judgment remains in force.
“We shall test every question including all issues up to the Supreme Court because only the judiciary at this stage can determine the fate of the APC in Rivers State and we are fully committed to the rule of law and not to the rule of one man. All we are demanding and asking for is constitutional and inclusive democratic politics in line with our party constitution”.
Aguma regretted that the party was back to a similar route it took at the dictates of one man in 2019, which made it impossible for the APC to field candidates in elective offices, thereby dashing the hope of traumatised party faithful.
He said, “This is because one man, who is playing god in the party is out to fulfill his vow to destroy APC in the state because that is the only way he can maintain the control of every patronage that is due Rivers State from the federal level.
“Sadly, another local government election in Rivers State is around the corner scheduled to hold in April 2021, yet the party that should be playing formidable opposition is enmeshed in a crisis and put on the warpath by known dissidents because of the selfish political interest of one man.”
He said the recent inauguration of caretaker committees of APC at the state, local and ward levels and the appointment of one Isaac Ogbobula as the state’ committee chairman by the ‘Amaechi Socio-political Group’ had nothing to do with the APC.
Aguma maintained that persons behind the inauguration were out to blackmail his committee’s resolve to rebuild the party in the state.
He said, “For emphasis, they are an aggrieved group within the APC in Rivers State made up of renegade and sponsored by the self-acclaimed godfather of the APC in Rivers State
“The desperate actions of the said Isaac Ogbobula and the Amaechi political group cartels are only misleading the unsuspecting public and a section of the APC with their manifest penchant for self-help and jungle justice.
“This same Isaac Ogbobula has been ostensibly hired to propagate divisiveness in the party and he knows he lacks the political pedigree and legitimacy to be the chairman of the APC in Rivers State. What he and his co-travelers fail to understand is that they cannot shrink the APC to be put into the pocket the self-parading godfather of the party in Rivers”.
