…As PDP Sweeps Supplementary Polls
The senator representing Rivers South-East district in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe, has called on the Adams Oshiomhole-led national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to stop promoting illegality within the fold of the party in Rivers State.
This is as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winners of the supplementary elections conducted in four local government areas in the state.
Abe, who spoke yesterday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, at a stakeholders meeting organized by a faction of the APC, described the Prince Peter Odike-led factional executives as the only executives recognised by the Courts.
The senator said: “Based on the existing judgement of the Courts, which stopped the congresses in Rivers State at that time and voided those that had been held, the only legitimate executives of the party is the one that the Court said should maintain the status quo and that is the executives as led by Chief Peter Odike.
“There is every need therefore, to begin the urgent, necessary, important and inescapable task of putting the APC together in Rivers State and it has to be done through the legitimate executives of the party.
“I wish to use this opportunity to call on the national leadership of the party go stop doing anything that will promote illegality, confusion and problem in the APC in Rivers State. They should work with Odike, let us begin to put things together.”
He said based on the pronouncements of the Supreme Court, the order and subsequent judgement of the Rivers State High Court presided over by Hon. Justice Chinwendu Nwogu, remains the legal position for the APC in the state.
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Abe, who is also Chairman, Senate Committee on FERMA, said: “I want to make this abundantly clear, I don’t want to be leader of APC in Rivers State. I want to be one of the leaders of our great party in Rivers State; one of those that will be consulted, one of those whose inputs would be necessary, one of those who will sacrifice for the growth of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State. I will be one of them.
“Clearly, from the pronouncements of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, it is not clear that the judgement of Nwogu J, and the orders of Nwogu J delivered on May 11 and the judgement that was subsequently delivered remains the legal position for the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State.
“More than three to five panels of the Court of Appeal have sat through, by, within, around the orders and the judgement and they see still standing. More than five panels of the Supreme Court of Nigeria have sat through, by, within, around, anyhow around the judgement of Nwogu J and the judgement is still standing.
“The congress that was held is still void, totally void. Anybody who gets up now to parade or do anything, or even those who paraded before now, have done so totally in contempt of the Courts of our land and they can no longer be allowed to do that. That is over because there is no legal room for which anybody can do that.”
Meanwhile, INEC has declared Soloko Solomon, Adonye Diri, Nwanaka Okpokiri Nwanaka and Dumle Maol, all of the PDP as the winners of the supplementary elections conducted in four local government areas in the state.
A statement made available to newsmen in Port Harcourt by INEC Public Relations Officer in the state, Geraldine Ekelemu, said Solomon pulled to a total of 55,944 votes to win the Abua/Odual House of Assembly seat while Diri won Opobo/Nkoro seat with 7,713 votes.
According to the statement, Nwanaka won the Ahoada-West House of Assembly seat with a total of 32,574 votes while Mail won Gokana seat with 55, 319 votes.
