A former aide to the erstwhile Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Rivers State Chapter. Dr. Ibiamu Davies Ikanya, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze has revealed why Gov. Nyesom Wike organized a jumbo reception to welcome the erstwhile Chairman who defected to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), recently.
In a statement made available to media houses in Port Harcourt, Chief Eze said the multi-million naira reception was organized as a response to the gale of defection that recently rocked the People’s Democratic Party in Rivers State, where dozens of political heavyweights, including former Commissioners, Special Assistants, Board Members and close allies of Gov. Wike, alongside their supporters, left the licking umbrella party to pitch their tent with the All Progressives Congress.
Describing the mammoth event as laughable and of no effect, the former aide said one would have loved to see Ikanya and other defectors quietly take a stroll back to their base -PDP, than for Wike to waste the huge sum he expended to put the jamboree in place to receive people who are already members, and have been working with and for the People’s Democratic Party while pretending to have a business with the All Progressives Congress.
” In his raunchy custom of reckless spending and wastage of public funds, Governor Nyesom Wike, organized a multi-million naira jumbo reception rally to welcome Dr. Ibiamu Davies Ikanya, erstwhile Chairman, APC, Rivers and his clownish compadre, Igo Aguma, into the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), after the duo, alongside others, successfully executed the artfully contrived scheme for which they were hired by the Governor, to help his 2019 re-election bid, by stirring-up and sustaining crisis in the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress. For conscious political watchers, it was a homecoming rather than a defection rally, as the fair-weather politicians and pretentious party men have always been with Gov. Wike”.
Eze said Aguma, Ikanya, Abe and others have always constituted themselves as moles monitoring the affairs of the APC and reporting back to the party where their souls have always been and by their common exit, true APC faithful in Rivers State should be celebrating, owing to the fact that those who constituted themselves into a nuisance in the APC have finally departed to allow for sanity and internal re-organization.
“How people who ganged up to work against the aspiration and vision of APC for Rivers State assumed to have defected to PDP, a party they have been working for since 2015 when Dr. Dakuku Peterside was elected to fly the flag of the party, and again in 2019 when it became crystal clear that their chosen candidate, Senator Magnus Abe could not fly the flag of the party, beats one’s imagination”. Eze said.
“While I was watching the event through a National Television, organised by Governor Nyesom Wike and his PDP gang of clowns to receive my friends, Dr. Ibiamu Davies Ikanya, assumed State Chairman of Rivers State APC and Igo Aguma, whose notoriety to destroy APC is a public knowledge, I laughed them to scorn”.
“Since the reception, I have received several calls within and outside Nigeria asking for my stand on the defection of Dr. Ikanya whom according to them I worked with when he was nominated as the APC State Chairman. I wonder what exactly some of these callers want me to say, knowing that the said defection is one that gives joy to the souls of true APC faithful in Rivers State, given the antecedents of the duo.”
Aware of Aguma’s antecedents, Eze said he never attached an atom of seriousness to his person and recalled telling him publicly that he will run away from the APC, and in line with the prediction, Aguma is formally gone.
For Dr. Ikanya, Eze called him a silent operator bidding for his time to embrace Governor Wike, and with the expiration of his task in the party, he left.
“For the avoidance of doubt, after finishing my task as National Publicity Secretary of the New Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, I was reduced to a mere Media Aide to the Rivers State Chairman of APC ,Dr. Ikanya. The fact is that the APC as a party felt that Dr. Ikanya and his Media Aides do not have the liver to issue fiery statements needed at that time knowing the type of politics that Wike plays to keep the opponents at bay and so I was prevailed upon to help out”.
“Events within the party office then, revealed Ikanya’s devilry, he worked tirelessly with Abe, to destroy the Rivers APC”.
“This fact is well known to Amaechi and most members of the inner circle of his political family and resulted to the election of Ojukaye Flag-Amachree as the State Chairman in place of Dr. Ikanya at the expiration of his tenure. If he was re-elected as APC State Chairman, APC as presently constituted would have been pocketed by Wike and Abe and those they are fronting for in Lagos’.
Apologizing to Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi for all the pains Ikanya caused the party and all he may have said about him, Eze recalled that he, alongside others, prevailed on Amaechi to reappoint Dr. Ikanya as a member of the State Executive Council, without which Ikanya would not be in position to abuse Amaechi the way he is currently doing.
Eze recalled, “when Amaechi decided to dissolve his Cabinet after some years in his first tenure, the State Exco of Forum of Organised Opposition Political Parties
FOOPP, a body comprising of all the political parties in opposition in Rivers State decided to visit him again to review our relationship with his government. Then, Dr. Ibiamu was not reappointed and it was very clear that the system had concluded that he would not be reappointed. By the time the Governor responded to almost all the issues we tabled before him, he tactically jumped that of reappointment of Ibiamu into his Cabinet and was about leaving the State Exco Chamber. I don’t know where I got the strength to state, “Your Excellency Sir, you have not addressed the issue of the reappointment of Dr. Ibiamu”. The Governor then responded that if we wanted Ibiamu to be reappointed, he would do so but we should be ready to bear the consequences and we all chorused yes, yes; and that was how Dr. Ibiamu was reappointed and I am still suffering that boldness in some quarters. My offence was who gave me the audacity to challenge what had already been concluded.” in line with the warning of Amaechi the consequences of this honest and innocent plea is what has played out today”.
“In other words, I instigated his reappointment, and thus, I apologize to Rivers People, the APC family, and the South-South leader of the party, His Excellency Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, for that singular mistake not knowing that Dr. Ikanya will today stand in a public gathering to castigate, abuse and insult Amaechi the way he did during the worthless homecoming event. What a world!!
