18th December, 2023
By Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
The 27 members of the Rivers State House of Assembly led by Martin Amaewhule who abandoned the Peoples Democratic Party for the All Progressives Congress, APC last Monday were officially welcomed into their new party on Sunday.
The lawmakers who have taken sides with Governor Nyesom Wike in his ongoing battle with his successor, Siminalayi Fubara were officially welcomed into the party at a ceremony held at Polo Club field, Port Harcourt.
Rivers APC Caretaker Committee Chairman, Tony Okocha and representatives of the National Executive Council of the party were present to receive the assembly members.
Speaking at the occasion, Amaewhule defended their decision to abandon PDP. He claimed that the lawmakers followed due process and obeyed all the laws that prescribed room for defection.
He said one of the reasons allowed for defection by a lawmaker as provided in Section 109 of the Constitution was if there is crisis and division in his or her party.
The factional Speaker said the PDP is currently divided: “We have evidence that there is division in the party and at appropriate we’ll make it public”.
Likewise, he anchored their decision to join APC instead of the other parties on the faithful implementation of the Renewed Hope Agenda by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Amaewhule said the President has kept his promise to reconstruct the East-West road starting from the dilapidated portion at Eleme, appointed a Rivers man as Minister of Federal Capital Territory, appointed Rivers sons and daughters into federal agencies like; the Revenue Mobilization and Federal Allocation Committee, RMAFC, Nigeria Delta Development Commission, NDDC and National Population Commission, NDDC.
He also said that the Port Harcourt Refinery will come on stream in January.
Amaewhule described the other faction of lawmakers led by the other factional Speaker Edison Ehie as “Beer Parlour friends”, who lacked legitimacy in the eyes of the law.
Speaking at the ceremony which was preceded by Thanksgiving and Dedication presided over by Venerable Dr Samuel Chimenem, Archdeacon of Holy Trinity Anglican Church Rumuapara, Port Harcourt, Professor Abdulkarim Abubarkar Kana, APC National Legal Adviser, who represented the National Chairman Alhaji Ibrahim Ganduje, advised the aggrieved State Executive Council, led by Emeka Beke to channel all its grievances and complaints to Tony Okocha.
Okocha on his part vowed that the defection of the lawmakers would lead to chasing out a rudderless state government of PDP led by Governor Fubara.
He accused the state government of knowing the arsonists who burnt the Assembly Complex. He said that was why the state government has refused to up a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to probe the incident.
Okocha said if the aim of burning the complex was to deny the Lawmakers a place for sitting for fear of impeachment, he warned that the Lawmakers could sit anywhere as long as they had the Mace.
He, therefore, cautioned Fubara to gird his loins and watch his back.