•Rivers APC chieftain Eze Chukwuemeka Eze
Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has dismissed as “wild and a daydream” the recent claim by one of the ruling party’s leaders in Lagos, Engr. Joe Igbokwe, that President Muhammadu Buhari may sack Minister of Transportation and South-South Leader of APC, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, if he fails to stop Rivers APC “from embarrassing APC Nigeria”.
Igbokwe had said in a Facebook post: “He (Amaechi) may be compelled to drop his position if he cannot call you fake APC members to order even when you could not deliver a single Counselor in that due selfish sense of superiority and imposing some fake and inordinate power you do not have.”
“It is this kind of political stupidity that led Wike to dislodge you fake Buharists in Rivers. Meaningless bravado, selfishness, self importance, hustling tendencies with nothing to put on the table is the real problem. Too much noise from Rivers,” Igbokwe added.
Reacting Wednesday via a statement issued in Port Harcourt, Eze, former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), described the comment as “a mere balderdash emanating from a political whippersnapper in an attempt to engage in an undue bandy.”
Eze, a known ally of Amaechi, wondered when Igbokwe took up an appointment as Presidential Spokesman. He cautioned the Lagos APC chieftain, who doubles as Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Drainage and Water Resources, “to pay a more detailed attention and channel his energy to his primary assignment of cleaning up dirty drainages in Lagos and stop being a busybody.”
The party chief said there was more to the political drama that was displayed in Rivers State during the 2019 elections than mere eyes could see. He said national forces from within and outside the APC fueled the crisis in a bid to weaken and pull down the Transportation Minister given his towing and intimidating political profile in Nigerian politics.
Eze added that “Rivers APC has found the path of peace with the new State Executive Committee under the watch of Dr Davies Sokonte, following the adoption of more pragmatic approaches towards solving the problems within the party.”
Eze reminded Igbokwe’s political godfather, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, that he once acknowledged Amaechi as the General of the Commonsense Revolution that swept off the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from power. “Besides, for a man to have led President Buhari’s Campaign Organization on two occasions and succeeded becoming the first African to achieve that and for a nobody like Joe Igbokwe to use unkind words on him shows how frustrated he has become and probably to create a rift between you and Amaechi,” said.
“On the crisis currently ravaging APC at the centre and in some states, Nigerians are not deceived as the ambition of one man is the fire tearing down the party but God will help us to rescue our party from such ‘emperoristic’ forces,”he added.
Eze assured Tinubu that “further attack on the person and personality of Amaechi will be resisted as we will not allow the likes of Joe Igbokwe or whatever he represents to bring down Amaechi that ThisDay Newspapers presented as the Minister of the Decade.”
The party chief said that President Buhari “and indeed, all well-meaning Nigerians have continued to commend Amaechi for his style of service delivery which has translated into a massive development in rail infrastructure as a critical element of economic development and job creation.”
He declared that “Rt. Hon. Amaechi remains an iconic political heavyweight to reckon with in the politics of Nigeria given his numerous achievements and track records in public service.”
He called on Tinubu “to tame Igbokwe and tone down his barbaric wildness in the public space,” stressing that “Rt. Hon. Amaechi has earned much respect and public confidence in leadership and should be reasonably shielded from vituperative tantrums.”
