Rivers APC Scribe, Amaechi Supporters Disagree On Followership

The secretary of the caretaker committee of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Chief Eric Nwibani, and supporters of the former minister of transportation, Hon Chibuike Amaechi, have disagreed over the former minister’s loss of followership after the party lost the state in 2015, 2019, and 2023 elections.

Nwibani declared during a press conference that Amaechi, who is also a former governor of Rivers State, had lost 70 percent of his political followership and support due to his poor leadership skills in the party in the state.

He said, “Amaechi has lost over 70 percent of his followership. I am done working with Amaechi. Let me tell you the type of leader Amaechi is. In 2019, during the presidential campaign rally of President Buhari at Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium, 16 Rivers people died due to stampede.

“Three persons from Obio/Akpo and other LGAs, Amaechi visited three families in Obio/Akpo and promised the families through their leaders that he would do something for the deceased families. He didn’t turn up. That is the kind of leader Amaechi is.

“He carries bitterness over the years. I heard him say he would plan to win the next election. How? You were a super minister and couldn’t win the last election. Now that you are out of government, can you win an election?

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“Amaechi cannot say those working with Wike are hungry. I don’t know where he worked before joining politics. We know he made money from government and politics.

I know that Victor Giadom is not hungry. I know that Ojukaye Flag Amachree is not, Engr Sampson Ngerigbari and many others are not hungry. I don’t know what informed him of his statement that those now working with Wike are hungry.

“Yes, Wike is a PDP man. But he is a Rivers son and is doing very well as an FCT minister working in the government of President Tinubu. We need to give him all the support he deserves. You cannot run a party aground and lose three consecutive elections due to ineffective leadership qualities and expect people to follow you still. It is impossible to have three good circles and you believe that those people will continue to follow you.

“He left PDP in 2014 for APC, and nobody threw stones at him; why is he carrying bitterness because he lost the election against President Tinubu in 2023.”

But, in his reaction, the spokesman of the APC loyal to Amaechi, Darlington Nwauju, accused the party secretary of selling out his political platform in 2019.

Nwauju said, “Our attention has been drawn to a most vexatious and pungent vituperation by a licensed political mole and merchant who unashamedly sold out his political platform during the 2019 general elections whilst acting as chairman of the Khana LGA chapter of the APC.

“Quite unfortunately, we are forced to do a rejoinder on an issue that should pass for the ranting of a hireling. However, we do know for a fact that democracy all over the world is a celebration of the right to choices.

“And so, on this year’s Democracy Day, we would not shy away from giving an appropriate response to a needless press briefing by some group of interlopers, who conspired with the greatest traducer of the APC in Rivers State, to balkanise our party and paint it a platform for conscience-less and soul-less power-thirsty individuals.

“At the risk of descending into the market arena with the likes of Mr Eric Nwibani, who claims he was handpicked to serve as “Secretary” of an illegitimate committee, his (Nwibani’s) betrayal of the entire membership and stakeholders of our party in that LGA cannot be anything less than legendary.

“Fresh in our memories are his badly packaged lies that he was attacked and that monies meant for party agents and sundry logistics miraculously disappeared from the trunk of his car. Of course, this left the entire LGA despondent, effectively dismantling the party’s plans for elections in that LGA, and unsurprisingly, we lost!” he said.