The Minister of transportation *Rt Hon CRA* reacting to the invasion, wrecking and looting of the Rivers state secretariat of the All Progressives Congress, APC, said ‘a lot of people have complained about internal democracy in APC. So why are they running away from internal democracy. We have now agreed that there is no leader of APC in Rivers state. Everybody is a leader, so let’s go and queue up for the candidates we want.
‘As early as 6am, I gathered that thugs have taken over the secretariat of APC. And because of all this noise about police and all that, despite the fact that the party had invited the police to protect the property, they could not do anything when they come.
‘Meanwhile the party needed to sell forms for any one who was interested. So what a governorship candidate wants to do is that there should not be any congress. He took over the party secretariat with thugs. It till about 3pm that the police had to force themselves in for people to purchase forms for tomorrow’s congress.
“If that candidate is popular, why not tell your supporters to go and purchase that form and go and contest the congress. Am grateful that people bought forms and I hope his supporters also bought the forms, because tomorrow’ the Ward congresses will hold.
‘The police were there when the offices of the APC were destroyed. It is not true there were policemen sent anywhere’ rather it was the police that were invited by the party for protection of the party secretariat and to disperse the thugs brought to disrupt the purchase of forms.
‘Forms were sold to contestant, tomorrow we are going ahead with the congresses. And to think of the lie again that I had hijacked the materials. There are no materials for Ward Congresses. It is just for people to buy forms and contest elections. Go to the bank, pay and collect your teller and get your form.
‘People will queue up tomorrow and supervisors from the national secretariat will count votes on Option A4 and whoever wins becomes the chairman. And a report of the results by the committee is sent to the National Secretariat at Abuja. No other materials. So there are no materials to hijack.
‘I am not aware of any injunction of any kind. Neither has the party told me of any injunction. By the way I thought the court says before you grant an injunction the other party must be out on notice. That’s one. The second part is that the action for which they are trying to stop has commenced.
‘What they are trying to stop is not a day thing. People have bought forms and they have actually left to their various villages for the exercise tomorrow. No party officer is left here. They have all gone. I am not a party officer, I am a former governor and Minister, so if you serve me of what effect?
On Wike
‘The governor, Wike is a clown, why don’t you enjoy his jokes. There is also a thing we need to talk about. When I was governor for how many years’ was there a time we announced to hotels that they should not receive visitors. How can the governor of a state say that hotels should not welcome APC leaders and that anyone found will be closed down and nobody is talking?
‘When a governor is doing those things he’s fighting, he is afraid. It is not politics, it is fear. He is very very afraid and I am enjoying his jokes. I want him to feel what I felt.’
