The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State has been embroiled in crisis, which is traceable to 2018 when the Supreme Court banned it from being part of the 2019 general election in the state. Since then, the party has not fully recovered as it has moved from one problem to another.
In this exclusive interview with DAILY POST, the spokesperson of the party in the state, Darlington Nwauju, opens up on how it all began, especially, the loggerheads between the APC national body led by Abdullahi Ganduje and the State Executive. He also proffered the only solution to the challenges facing the party ahead of the 2027 general elections. Excerpts!
Rivers APC used to be one vibrant and a strong party, how did it get to this?
First, APC in Rivers State is in this condition because of an unconstitutional route the NWC under Ganduje took in attempting to oust validly elected executives of the party in the state.
On the 22nd day of November, 2023, a press statement was made by Barrister Felix Morka announcing the outcome of an NWC meeting which he claimed amongst other issues decided to cut short the tenure of elected executives of the party at all levels in the state, by purportedly dissolving these organs of our party in Rivers State.
We immediately wrote to the NWC drawing their attention to the fact that no part of our Constitution gives them (NWC) powers to dissolve any organ of the party, most especially when it (NWC) did not even respect Article 21 of the 2022 constitution (as amended), which clearly prescribes steps that should be taken in the event that need arises for discipline of any party member not to talk of officers of the party.
We gave a 21-day notice for the NWC to refrain from the path of infamy and embrace the path of constitutionality and due process given the indubitable evidence that none of the elements of natural justice were invoked before reaching such an extremely vexatious decision of dissolving elected party executives.
For the avoidance of doubts, please be reminded that in reading of Constitutions, we must do it on community basis and by the combined reading of Article 13.3(B) and Article 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 21.4, even the NEC of the party which holds inherent powers to dissolve all other organs of the party, except the Advisory Council, must according to our Constitution, do so ONLY in a compelling situation taking notice of the steps provided in Article 21 of our own party Constitution.
So, the NWC overreached its powers, completely abandoning the provisions of Article 21 and purportedly set-up a seven member Caretaker committee. All these infractions were duly pointed out in our letter to the NWC but they ignored our advisory and went ahead to purport to inaugurate the so called CTC.
Fast-forward to August 12 2024, when a High Court in Rivers State wielded the big stick by dissolving the contraption set up by the NWC and imposed on Rivers State. It did so after nine (9) months of several back and forths without ambiguity, on points of law.
First, one of the principles of natural justice is fair hearing and the NWC never set out ab initio to bring us before our accusers and allow us defend ourselves on the funny allegation of anti-party leveled against the Executives.
Neither did the NWC back up its preposterous allegations with cogent or verifiable evidence, so their defence was knocked off. You cannot wake up as an organ of a political party to seek to enforce a Section or Article of the party Constitution, indiscriminately. Let’s even assume the NWC has powers to dissolve other organs beneath it, does the Constitution of our party allow for such decisions to be executed indiscriminately? Would that not lead to absolutism and autocracy in a constitutional democracy?
The next we heard after the judgement of August 12, 2024, was entered in our favour by Justice Sika Aprioku of the High Court of Rivers State, was Mr Festus Faunter (by the way I hear he is a lawyer), coming on national TV to denigrate a lawful order of Court, by openly declaring that the NWC of APC (the ruling party in Nigeria and by implication the undebatable torchbearer of democracy in our clime), would NOT respect or obey Justice Aprioku’s judgement because according to him “the High Court had no jurisdiction” to entertain the matter.
Quite embarrassingly, the same Mr Festus who sits as Deputy National Secretary of the APC in Nigeria today, went further to make a caricature of himself and the party by further declaring by way of afterthought and clear misjudgement of facts, that there was an Order of another High Court which dissolved the Rivers State Executives of the party.
And I still believe that this NWC should apologize to APC members in Nigeria and Mr President who is leader of our party, for causing us such an embarrassment. No court in Nigeria dissolved any layer of the Executives in Rivers and so it was deceitful and outrightly malicious to say so. On the other hand, assuming a High Court dissolved APC Executives in Rivers State and the party acted upon that judgement (after seven months of sleeping on its rights to act), why did the NWC choose to now respect the order of a brother High Court judge? Why was the High Court order which seems to have favoured the NWC’s interest and agenda not disregarded? Why should Justice Kio’s interim order be respected by Ganduje’s NWC and Justice Aprioku’s full judgement order not be respected by the same NWC? Why the double standards?
For the purposes of clarity, Justice Daketima Kio of the Rivers State High Court had on April 13, 2023 issued an interim order endorsing the suspension of two (2) officers not the entire State, LGA and ward Executives but two officials of the party for seven days which was Appealed and the lower court later discharged this interim order thereby freeing these officials of the party.
What is the nexus between an interim order (7 days order) of a State High Court issued in April 2023 and the purported dissolution of all the organs of the party in Rivers State on November 22 2023? Does it fly in the face of logic? So, it was the indiscretion and high-handedness of the Ganduje NWC that has oxygenated the crisis in Rivers APC. Ditto the crisis with the executives in Benue, Enugu and a few other places.
What do you think could be of interest to the Ganduje-led NWC in Rivers APC?
It’s very simple. The fact that rather than choosing the part of peace building or peace making, the NWC under Ganduje decided to align itself with a character that has consistently been in opposition to the success and progress of the APC in Rivers. Recall that in 2018, one individual went to court against APC Rivers State which now culminated in the Supreme Court decision to exclude Rivers APC from the 2019 election.
That same individual, on the 18th of October, 2021, after the nationwide congress, decided again to declare a parallel executive in the APC Rivers State. I’m referring to Mr. Tony Okocha. You can now see that an individual, who has chosen to work against the progress of our party was now picked to claim to run the APC in Rivers State. How did Ganduje and co arrive at that decision to look at the entirety of Rivers State across the 319 wards and 23 LGAs that make Rivers State to pick a character that has consistently worked against the APC in Rivers State as the choice to build APC?
Could it be because of Okocha’s loyalty to the FCT Minister?
There could be no better reason than to allude to the fact, even with this much evidence that clearly it was an agenda to hand the party over to the FCT Minister, that is what is in fact, playing out. Because the last time that I checked, Tony Okocha was part and parcel of the SDP arrangement. The last time that I checked, Tony Okocha was campaigning for Sim Fubara to be governor against the APC candidate, Tonye Cole. The facts are there.
Now do you expect members of the party in the grassroots to accept such a character who has consistently worked against their progress and that of their party in 2019, in 2023, to now be the face of the party, according to Ganduje? There are things you cannot do if indeed you’re planning to rebuild the party.
As the Chairman of the party, all you need to do is remain neutral and to make sure that all the interest groups come together to work as one. Now, Ganduje’s decision to bring this character shows he is not prepared at all for the progress and success of the APC in Rivers State because it’s a clear path to the destruction of the party.
Is there a possibility that some persons could be fighting or trying to humiliate a founding leader of the party in the State, Rotimi Amaechi through Ganduje?
Amaechi is a member of the APC. I’m not his spokesperson. He has not given me the permission to speak about him or to discuss his activities or action but I want to say this, some of the issues that someone like Tony Okocha has played out when discussing the politics of Rivers State were mere rhetoric to blackmail the former Minister. He has made several claims of him [Amaechi] giving instruction and doing this or that against the President without any concrete evidence.
How can the APC Rivers State return to the vibrant and strong opposition?
The party must respect and have regard for the rule of law. It must accept that it made blunder and acted outside our Constitution. It is when you have made restitution, apologised and seen the fact that you were misled, you were misinformed into taking those decisions, then there can now be a forum for everybody to sit at a round table and discuss the way forward.
Getting forward is not actually rocket science, but it has to start from somewhere. And somewhere is to ensure that justice is done with that illegal purported dissolution. You must start from that point, make the necessary corrections and then allow the party to move forward, because there is actually no time. If there is no time, if we are prepared, if we are serious about forming a government in Rivers State, then we must do the right thing to get the right result.
Looking at the body language of the Ganduje-led NWC, do you think that they are willing to embark on this peace mission, especially when people like Wike and Tony Okocha are involved?
Well, I cannot speak for them. I cannot speak on their behalf. I do not know what their thoughts are. I do not know what they’re thinking but the issues are manifestly clear, and so if you want to solve a problem, you do not solve cancer by prescribing paracetamol then you get it resolved. You do not allow it to get to stage four before you now start talking about finding solutions, when you should have done something earlier.
Looking at the APC in Rivers State now, do you have the sufficient manpower, the strength to withstand the challenges before you with the likes of Amaechi appearing disinterested in the happenings in the state?
I said I would not want to be pigeonholed into discussing Amaechi’s thoughts or decisions. Of course, everybody in Nigeria knows that you cannot write off a man who led for the first time, the revolution that swept away a ruling party from power at the centre. You cannot wish him away. While he was taking all the risk to build the APC in Rivers State, some of the people who are now benefiting from the party were calling the APC an Islamic party and accusing him of attempting to Islamise Rivers State. They said the state was a Christian State.
But today the same persons are hobnobbing with the APC. In fact, they even want to hijack and pocket the culture of the APC. So you see, when you are dealing with inconsistent characters, there is nothing on earth that you will not see, and there is nothing you will not hear. Like I said, political relationships always have an expiry date and their political decisions have always been influenced by purely gastric reasons.
Would you agree that the APC in Rivers has been suppressed and subdued?
I think that this perception that you people [the media] are trying to take is a mere media creation. What you read on the pages of newspapers is opposite to what’s on ground. There is no way for us in the APC Rivers State you can talk about having sufficient manpower and having an organic followership without pointing at the APC that its members were killed, I mean, people were butchered in 2015 in their numbers at Omoku, in Ogoni axis, at different places our campaigns were bombed, our party offices were attacked.
In fact, in 2015, I was sitting directly behind the governorship candidates, Dakuku Peterside in Okrika when we came under attack. My shoes are still somewhere in Okrika today, because I ran for my dear life. So the APC has had memberships strong willed enough to remain in the party in spite of all these challenges. I just mentioned, it is difficult for you to uproot that resilient spirit.
Is the APC making efforts to lure the Governor to its fold with what is going on between him and his godfather?
Well, like I said before, the political party is a platform that entertains all chains of character, people with different training, people from different backgrounds and different ideologies. If the governor wants to join, until the time when such discussion comes up, I will not want to engage in unnecessary comments. There will be no need for me to address rumors or hearsay or whatever, but it is when we get to a point or a stage where the sitting governor decides, I think I need to join the APC, then such discussion can now come up, but we are open for such a discussion, for the governor expressing his interest to join our political party, we’ll be ready for such discussion.
What does the APC think concerning the brouhaha surrounding the 27 state assembly lawmakers?
We all very well know that the matter is still in court. The fact that after the decision of the lawmakers on December 11 last year, we did issue a statement pointing to the fact that there are some protocols that they have not obeyed and one of those protocols is enshrined in our party’s constitution, because we’re people of law and at every point in time, we speak to those rules, those regulations that bind us together.
We said, please, if you want to join and have an interest to join, do visit your ward, get registered at your wards or you get to the national secretary of our party and ensure they grant you waivers to join the party. The rest is history, because some national figures of the party, including Victor Gaidon, openly embraced and endorsed their crossing over to the APC.
So for us, we believe that these individuals have officially joined the APC, not to talk about the fact that on the floor of the House of Assembly, they made their intentions that they were leaving their party the PDP, which is a sinking ship. They were leaving that sinking ship to join the APC. And they all now confirmed that seriousness and preparedness to move on from the PDP by going to the FCT High Court to depose reasons why they have officially left their party for the APC.
So these are evidence that no reasonable man should ignore. They are members of the APC because of the steps they themselves took. They are full grown adults. And as full grown adults, they took those decisions for themselves.
So for us, in fact, the last time we held a stakeholders meeting, we actually called them to attend. So, we’re also surprised when they came up again to say they never moved. But the evidence weighs so much against them.
Should the 27 lawmakers relinquish their seat at the assembly?
We’re a nation of the law. Sometimes, there’s how people do things and later decades reverse and choose a political solution. They should choose to sort out that matter via political solutions because after they left, some members of the assembly decided to run a faction of the assembly. No matter how few they are, took up the gauntlet and decided to run a faction of the assembly. The issue is clear, section 109 is self-executory. That some made a wrong decision and escaped yesterday does not mean I should make the same decision and expect to escape today. That is why we have the rule of law. So for us, we’re on what the constitution says and it’s self-explanatory.
However, in the interest of peace, if they’ve gone into peace-talk with the rest members of the House, chat the way forward and align themselves with the interest of Rivers people, it would be a fantastic thing to do. You cannot go to court, swear an affidavit and deny it. When you do that how will the people see you? You’re not even a man of integrity.
By the end of this year, we’ll have just 2 years until 2027, how is your party preparing in the face of crises?
On the issue of 2027, I believe so much on what the supernatural can do in the affairs of men. I believe it’s God that decides the affairs of men. Predicting the future is a difficult thing for an individual having the Christian background that I have. I’m saying that by the time we get to the bridge, we’re going to cross it. I cannot sit here and start talking with finality, with authority? No, we are not making final statements.
But the first logical thing to do for any reasonable person who understands the dynamics within the APC is to ensure you have a united front, to ensure that you put your own house together. It is to ensure that the charity you want to preach starts from your own home. It’s to have a united front. And when that is achieved, we can now begin to speak concerning 2027, how to go about it, how to come out with victory.
So for me, I will choose to leave or ignore the realms of discussing 2023 elections and concentrate my energy in ensuring that the APC is formidable enough.
With Wike’s perceived interest, do you think Rivers APC can heal?
The FCT Minister is not a card-carrying member of the APC.