APC accuses Gov. Fubara of fomenting political unrest, denies plot to hijack state
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has pointed fingers at Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, as the mastermind behind the political tensions rocking the state.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, made this claim in a statement released in Abuja on Thursday.
Morka dismissed allegations by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that the APC was plotting to seize control of Rivers State, labelling it a product of the PDP’s “warped imagination.”
The statement was in response to a call by the Rivers APC Caretaker Committee Chairman, Tony Okocha, for a state of emergency to be declared in the state due to escalating violence.
The PDP had countered that Okocha’s statement revealed the APC’s intention to instigate a crisis in the state.
However, Morka shifted the blame onto Governor Fubara, accusing him of orchestrating the political unrest in Rivers State. The APC and PDP have been engaged in a war of words, each denying the other’s allegations and reaffirming their respective parties’ stronghold on the state.
The ruling party claimed that since he assumed office over a year ago, the governor has displayed reckless disdain for the rule of law and democratic institutions, adding that he conducted his government in flagrant violation of the Constitution.
The APC publicist recalled how Fubara constituted a three-man Assembly after declaring Rivers state House of Assembly to be non-existent in what it called an unprecedented display of autocratic arrogance,
According to the statement, “This ridiculous and baseless claim was the subject of the party’s garbled press statement on Wednesday. The PDP offered no justification for its bogus claim except to mischievously misrepresent and amplify the comments reportedly made by Chief Tony Okocha while sweeping under the carpet the salient issues underpinning the festering crisis in Rivers State.
“Quite contrary to the PDP’s misplaced quibbles against Okocha comments, Governor Siminalayi Fubara is the supreme architect of the horrific crisis rocking Rivers state. The governor has continued to expend public funds without lawful appropriations by a duly constituted legislature thereby undermining the will of the good people of Rivers State and their right to effective and accountable democratic governance.
“Governor Fubara is an executive governor of crisis. A serious and focused governor would have set a clear programme to conduct local government elections given the established timeline for the expiration of the tenure of the incumbent elected local government officials. Rather, he sat idly for their tenure to elapse to unleash a fresh round of thuggery on the people, seeking to arbitrarily impose illegal, unconstitutional and anti-democratic caretaker committees to run the affairs of local governments in place of democratically elected local government officials.”
