The Senator representing Rivers South East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator Magnus Abe has appealed to members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to eschew bitterness and work towards the unity of the party.
Abe made the appeal when he paid a visit to the Palace of Eze Mike Ojiegbe, a traditional ruler in Omuma-land at Eberi, Headquarters of Omuma Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The senator said some members of the party have resorted to quarrelling amongst themselves because of a problem they assume exist between two individuals in the party.
He said, “My only annoyance and the only thing that upset me is that we have gotten to a stage in the party where people who have no trouble with one another are quarrelling with each other for no reason because of a problem that they imagine is between another person who is not themselves”.
Abe therefore called on members of APC in the State to be wise and work towards rebuilding the party in order to overcome the challenges facing the party.
The Senator said, “And I want to use this opportunity to appeal to all APC members to be wise because if we are not wise then whatever it is we think we are looking for it will elude everybody if we are not wise. Because this party, God has given us this State we cannot use our own hands to throw it away”.
“With our behavior, we must come together to build the party not build the party by driving away anybody, but building the party by opening the doors, opening the windows, opening the roof if necessary so that Rivers people can pour into this party to create the tsunami that is needed to throw out those who have privatised the future of our State.”
He condemned the politicisation of the traditional institution in the state; saying that a situation where traditional rulers are selected based on their allegiance to a seating government reduces them to mere government appointees.
Abe said, “There was a letter I wrote to the governor when he started politizing the Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers, and I said we should all be mindful of a situation where every government that comes will begin to select Chiefs who are for that government and Chiefs who are not for that government”.
“Because if we do that we will reduce the traditional institution to mere commissioners that will be appointed with a government, serve with the government that appointed them and go with it”.
“And that is not the intendment of our people for our traditional institution. So I warned that that kind of response to issues of our chieftaincy will not serve the interest of Rivers people, unfortunately that advice was not taken and we have found ourselves where we found ourselves”.
