Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised the alarm over alleged plot by Rivers State governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike, in connivance with security agencies, to arrest and detain its leaders and members of its Presidential Campaign Council in the state.
This is as it said the people of the state were massively resisting alleged orders of the governor, that they should vote for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
Also, an APC chieftain, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has described as false, the claims by the PDP in Rivers State, that former minister of transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, was hobnobbing with the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Speaking to newsmen in Port Harcourt yesterday, spokesman of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in the state, Dr Leloonu Nwibubasa, said no amount of threat will make the PDP leaders in the state to abandon their support for Atiku.
Nwibubasa said: “We want to clearly put it on notice that we have it on good authority that the governor, has in connivance with security agencies, especially the police, directed that leaders of the Presidential Campaign Council in Rivers State and PDP leaders that are working with our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to be arrested from today.
“And this is arrest that we know is politically motivated and because it is politically motivated, we want to state clearly that we will resist every politically motivated arrest, orchestrated by the Rivers State government and the Rivers State Governor in connivance with Police authorities in Rivers State.
“We are going to stand firm to ensure that we vote for our preferred candidate, who is Atiku Abubakar and we will not be threatened or made to abandon our support for our presidential candidate and support Governor Wike’s candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who he has earlier directed all the local government chairmen to begin to talk to our people that they should vote.
“On this day, I can say it clearly that there is massive resistant from the Rivers populace that they are not going to vote for the APC presidential candidate. Because of that, the plan of the governor to ensure that he cripples our resolve is now being hatched. Rivers people must know this; Nigerians must know this.
“We are calling on the Inspector-General of Police, we are calling on the National Security Adviser and every security formation in Nigeria to beam their searchlight on Rivers State as we know that today, the governor is planning to unleash violence on Rivers people because of his interest in this election.”
Meanwhile, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has described as false, the claims by the PDP in Rivers State that Amaechi was hobnobbing with the PDP’s presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Eze, made this known in a statement made available to LEADERSHIP in Port Harcourt yesterday. He said Amaechi remains a principled political leader and cannot be caught in the web of political cowardice like Wike, who is allegedly playing the ostrich in a clear bid to escape culpability for the mountainous legacy of failure his administration is about to bequeath to Rivers State and her people.
He described as vague the fictitious claim that Amaechi is part of the cabal allegedly responsible for the fuel and cash swap crisis and challenged Ogbonna and his paymaster to furnish Nigerians with detail of roles played by former Governor Amaechi to further the fuel crisis and cash crunch as a weapon against the people.
The APC chieftain said there was no validity in Ogbonna’s assertion that was only made to impress Wike who has instructed his likes to use the media to drag Amaechi into their morally irking, fruitless macabre and catastrophic political voyage.
