By Suleiman Anyalewechi
The Leadership of the Rivers state Chapter of the All Progressive Congress, APC, on Tuesday, February 25, 2025, insisted that the 27 Pro-Nyesom Wike State Lawmakers are unknown to the party, contrary to the public show they made of their historic decampment.
The Source reports that the 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly, had, in December 2023, in the wake of the disagreement between Governor Siminalayi Fubara and Wike, Minister, Federal Capital Territory, publicly defected from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to the APC.
But at a media briefing on Tuesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital, Tony Okocha, factional Chairman of the APC in the State denied that the Lawmakers had joined the party.
According to him, all talks about the defection of the 27 House members and their joining forces with the APC remain at the level conjectures.
Okocha maintained that there at no time in the history of the party, did it hold a ceremony for the reception of the said Lawmakers as being widely said.
This is even as he, also, tackled Governor Fubara, for being disrespectful to the laws of the land.
Okocha criticized the Governor for ignoring valid court verdicts ,to present the State’s budget to a three member Assembly.
He however expressed the hope that all the parties in the festering crisis in the state will be courageous enough to respect the outcome of the cases before the Supreme Court.
On what he described as the purported reception organized for the defected 27 PDP legislators, Okocha categorically denied ever receiving Rt Hon Martin Amaewhule and the 26 other House members as APC members.
According to him, the event which people have been alluding to as a reception ceremony, was an event meant to celebrate the inauguration of the State Executive Council of the party which held at the Polo Club in Port Harcourt.
Although the 27 pro-Wike Lawmakers were present at the occasion held in December, 2023, Okocha insisted they were there as mere friends, and not as APC members.
“There was no intention to organize, a reception for any defecting members. We were inaugurated in Abuja, and we chose to organize a reception and thanksgiving for our members .
“It was not to receive the 27 Lawmakers. We were misinterpreted to have received the 27 Lawmakers into APC. That is not correct.
“We invited individual members of the Assembly. I have a relationship with them over time. We tried to woo them into the party.
“I was intentional in reaching out to them to join us. We would have counted it all joy if we had succeeded”, the factional APC Chairman stated.
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