Rivers APC faction threatens LG poll boycott

The All Progressives Congress loyal to the sacked Caretaker Committee Chairman, Chief Tony Okocha, has announced that the party will not participate in the October 5, 2024 Local Government elections.

Disclosing the development during an enlarged APC stakeholders’ meeting in Port Harcourt, the state capital, on Wednesday, he said the processes of conducting the elections did not follow the law.

Recall that the Rivers State High Court, presided over by Justice Sika Aprioku, on Monday, July 12, 2024, sacked the Okocha-led Caretaker Committee and reinstated the former chairman, Emeka Beke.

Okocha, at a news briefing shortly after his sacking, accused the judge of bribery, saying, it was a supermarket judgment.

In its reaction, the APC National Working Committee, speaking through the Deputy National Secretary, Festus Fuanter, threw its weight behind the embattled caretaker committee of the party, insisting that the judgment was not binding on the party.

On the weight of the support by the national leadership of the party, Okocha called an enlarged stakeholders meeting on Wednesday to discuss issues on the LG elections.

The meeting had in attendance loyalists of Magnus Abe, including Wilson Ake and a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Wogu Boms.

Okocha, addressing the party members, said the party had gone to court to stop all the processes of conducting the LG election.

He insisted that the party was excluded from the stakeholders’ meeting involving political parties where the decision to conduct the election was made.

“The topical issue we have to discuss is the issue of the APC contesting local government elections on the 5th of October. That is one thing you would like to hear. We are in court and I will not speak in any matter that is in court.

“The most I can say to you is that the cause of action is to restrain the agencies that will conduct that election which they announce behind us.

“We are not part of the decisions to conduct an election on the 5th of October. We went on air on the 19th of January, if I remember, to tell the INEC Chairman and the commission to convey the process of having that local government election.

“At that time, it was still within the ambits of the laws of the state, because the law says three months to the expiration of the life of a chairman or tenure of the council.

“That law now, as we speak, will not work. You cannot conduct local government elections in Rivers State without a party like APC. I know too that PDP is not even in the race, so what we see is just a drama,” he said.

He stated further, “The day the commission held the stakeholders’ meeting, I was not invited. The APC Rivers State was not invited to the meeting where the decision for the October 5 election was taken.

 “So we cannot participate in that election because there was a deliberate plan to make us worthless, so we went to court.

“We are not saying we wouldn’t contest the election, our contention is until the process is in tandem with the law and that we as a party are also carried along in the entire arrangement.”

Okocha said the reason the APC was boycotting the election was not because of numbers or because there was no strength.

“The reason we went to court is not because we don’t have the numbers or that we don’t have the strength. I can assure you and you know for yourself that we have men and women that can contest any election and win.

“We are saying that the processes should be strengthened to be transparent. I was only doing whistle-blowing because that election would not represent the interests and the opinions of those who would vote. It is already a stereotype,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Rivers State branch of the Nigerian Bar Association has condemned a public comment credited to Okocha against judges of the High Court and the state judiciary.

The NBA specifically described allegations against Justice Aprioku as “spurious, unfounded and contemptible.”

The NBA, represented by its eight branch chairmen in Rivers State, during a press briefing in Port Harcourt, on Wednesday, demanded a public apology from Okocha over his comment.

The Chairman of the NBA Port Harcourt branch, Mrs Cordelia Eke, who read the position of the association, said litigants could not choose which judge would handle their case and must not make baseless allegations of bias or bribery without evidence.

The statement was signed by Cordelia U. Eke, Chairperson, Port Harcourt branch; Dr Cashmia Ofurum, Chairperson, Ahoada branch; Dr Celestine N. Nwankwo, Chairperson, Bori branch; Dr Hilda Desmond-Ihekaire, Chairperson, Okehi branch; Dr Nuleera Ambrose Duson, Chairperson, Degema branch; Abiye A. Abo, Chairperson, Okrika branch; Ekeledinichukwu Ordu, Chairperson, Omoku branch; and Tamunosiki A. Roberts, Chairperson, Isiokpo branch.

They warned that such attacks eroded public trust in the judiciary and were actionable in law.

The association urged Okocha to appeal the judgment if dissatisfied, rather than resorting to name-calling and abuse against the judge.

It, therefore, demanded that Okocha immediately retract his statements and tender a public apology to Justices S.H. Aprioku, C.N. Wali, and G.O. Ollor, within a short time.

“In any allegation of bribery against a judge must be founded on incontrovertible evidence not hearsay as it has grave implications for the image of the judiciary.

“Given the above, we the chairmen of the eight branches of the NBA in Rivers State hereby condemn the public statement of Chief Tony Okocha and call on him to immediately retract his statement denigrating the judiciary in Rivers State which he referred to as a supermarket.

“And we are calling on him to tender a public apology within a short time to the respected judges to the High Court of Rivers State, particularly Honourable Justice S. H Aprioku, Honourable Justice C.N Wali and Honourable Justice G.O Ollor, who indeed from all available facts have not taken any steps in the matter pending before them to warrant the petitioner, Chief Tony Okocha, barrage of insults,” the statement read.

Okocha, however, dismissed the NBA’s demand for an apology, describing it as trash.

Speaking in a popular Radio Talk show on (Nigeria Info 93.2) in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, he said he would not apologise for speaking the truth.

He said his petition against the judges was already before the National Judicial Council.

“I am sure that they know that this judge, first I wrote a petition against him and six other judges in Rivers State and they are lying down at NJC as we speak.

“This particular one I took him on, I wrote to the chief judge and said look, this man is biased and there are bias trappings in him and those who contracted him to do a particular job had left the group and had come to us to tell us who he is.

“I wrote a petition dated 20th March 2024. I told him he was biased. I will not apologise, I have done nothing and will not tender any apology to anybody,” he said.