Rivers: APC Chides PDP Over Forceful Takeover Claim

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has chided the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for alleging that the APC was plotting to forcefully take over Rivers State government.

APC, in a statement issued by its national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, in Abuja yesterday, said the allegation exists only in PDP’s warped imagination.

According to him, consistent with its scaremongering tendency, PDP on Wednesday alleged that APC was engaged in a plot to forcefully take over the government of Rivers State which was ridiculous and baseless claim.

Morka said PDP offered no justification for its bogus claim except to mischievously misrepresent and amplify the comments reportedly made by the Chairman of the Rivers state APC Caretaker Committee, Tony Okocha, while sweeping under the carpet the salient issues underpinning the festering crisis in Rivers State.

“Quite contrary to the PDP’s misplaced quibbles against Chief Okocha comments, Governor Siminalayi Fubara is the supreme architect of the horrific crisis rocking Rivers state.”

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Since assumming office over a year ago, Governor Fubara has displayed reckless disdain for the rule of law and democratic institutions, and conducted his government in flagrant violation of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“In an unprecedented display of autocratic arrogance, Governor Fubara declared the democratically elected Rivers state House of Assembly to be non-existent and, without lawful authority, constituted a bogus and an illegal 3-man sham Assembly in brazen violation of express provisions of the Constitution on the threshold composition of the House of Assembly and in disregard of the separation of powers doctrine.

“The Governor has continued to expend public funds without  lawful appropriations by a duly constituted legislature thereby undermining the will of the good people of Rivers State and their right to effective and accountable democratic governance.

“Governor Fubara is an executive governor of crisis. A serious and focused Governor would have set a clear programme to conduct local government elections given the established timeline for the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent elected local government officials.

“Rather, Governor Fubara sat on his hands and waited, idly, for their tenure to elapse in order to unleash a fresh round of thuggery and executive lawlessness on the people of Rivers state and, again, seeking to arbitrarily impose an illegal, unconstitutional and anti-democratic caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments in place of a democratically elected local government officials,” he said.

Morka maintained that the current crisis in Rivers state was clearly contrived and executed by Governor Fubara who has continued to usurp the legislative power of the Rivers state legislature while contemptuously disregarding valid decisions and orders of courts of competent jurisdiction in critical matters at the root of the crisis in the state.

“The PDP would rather peddle falsehood about a non-existent plot to interfere with the government of Rivers state instead of giving a crash course to Governor Fubara on the basic tenets of democratic and constitutional governance for the benefit of the good people of Rivers state,” Morka stressed.