Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze has hailed the judgement of a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt, affirming the position of Chief Emeka Beke and his team as the lawfully recognized State Chairman and Executive Committee Members respectively of the APC in the state.
Recall that in November of 2023, the National Working Committee of the APC, purportedly announced through its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Moka, the dissolution of the State Executive Council of the Party in Rivers State and constituted a 7-man caretaker committee headed by Tony Okocha.
The development was widely viewed as a stratagem to surreptitiously handover the leadership of the Rivers APC and other party structures to the FCT Minister and former Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike.
Dissatisfied by the unsubstantiated action of the APC’s NWC, Chief Emeka Beke, an ally of Rt. Hon. Barr Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and his team of congressionally elected State Executive Committee filed a suit seeking the court’s intervention over their unjust dissolution.
Justice Sika Aprioku who presided over the case ruled that the appointment of Tony Okocha and six others was unjustifiable and in gross violation of the constitution of the APC, noting that there was no valid reason for the NWC to dissolve the democratically elected state executive committee led by Chief Emeka Beke, whose four-year term still subsists.
Justice Aprioku issued a perpetual injunction against the Okocha-led caretaker committee and reinstated the Chief Emeka Beke-led executive as the authentic executive of the party in the state.
Reacting to the judgement, Eze commended the court for restraining the national leadership of the APC from further recognizing the Okocha-led executive and compelled them to henceforth begin to recognise the Beke-led elected executive.
He pleaded with the National Working Committee of the party to respect the Court judgement and accord the Beke’s Exco all the necessary support to move the party forward as we will not tolerate anymore any undue interferences of Rivers State APC affairs particularly given offices to none members of APC like Tony Okocha and his misguided co-Travellers who are not registered members of the party.
Eze expressed gladness for how the court slammed the ‘unprincipled’ Independent National Electoral Commission, for supporting the desolation of democratically elected executives of the APC, cautioning that leadership of political parties must learn to obey their own constitution and stop acting recklessly and in impunity in managing their own party.
”I pray and hope that INEC will respect herself and learn from this judgement’, he stated.
The party stalwart also pleaded with the Beke led State Exco to formally formalize the membership of the erstwhile Lawmakers led by Martins Amaewhule in obedience to President Tinubu’s directive that we should not discard anybody from joining APC.
Furthermore, he said, ”Now that sanity is brought back to APC in Rivers State, I plead with the APC Rivers State leadership to lobby Governor Sim Fubara to join the party instead of any other political party as we are ready to assist him in any way possible to move the State forward”.
Eze also said, ”the development has sent shock waves down the spines of FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike and his collaborators at the APC National Working Committee as there trajectory of bribing judicial officers failed in the situation”.
Describing the verdict as a victory for the entire Rivers State and a disgrace to all undemocratic forces within and outside Rivers State, the party chief called on the Governor of Rivers State to leverage the court judgement to align with the party and its development objectives to realign the state on a better pedestal.
Eze described the threat by Okocha to appeal the judgement as the Joke of the year , saying, ”this is just a step of a drowning man looking for anything to hold on as his dubious means of duping Nyesom Wike and the party leadership for funds to continue to carry out his dubious activities in Rivers State using the name of the party has come to an end”.
He urged all and sundry to keep faith with Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the undisputed Leader of APC in the entire Niger Delta region and called on security agencies to keep Tony Okocha and company at bay and be on the look out for their arrest should they parade themselves as caretaker committee of Rivers APC going forward.
