Following conflicting court orders on the conduct of party congresses by the Peoples Democratic Party PDP in Rivers State, a chieftain of the party and member of the House of Representatives, Ikeagwuonu Ugochinyere has described the Saturday, July 26, 2024 congresses in Rivers State as mere kindred meeting and a nullity.

While reacting to the exercise in Port Harcourt on Sunday, Ugochinyere, who is also a member of the G-60 group of national assembly legislators said that based on the court orders stopping the conduct of the congresses in Rivers State, what held on Saturday across the 319 wards would not stand as the court would set it aside.

A State High Court presided over by Justice Charles Wali had barred the PDP, its National Chairman, Iliya Damagum, and National Secretary, Senator Samuel Anyanwu, or their agents, from gathering anywhere in Rivers State to hold ward, local government, and state congresses pending the determination of the suit before the court.

The judge further directed the Inspector-General of Police, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, the Director-General of the Department of State Service (DSS), and the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) to enforce the order.

Prior to Wali’s order, Justice Sobere Biambo had on the 16th of July after the release of the timetable for the congresses issued an order in a suit filed by David Omereji and 10 others stopping the PDP, its national chairperson, national financial secretary, and national organizing secretary from conducting the congress.

However, a Federal High Court in Abuja, on Tuesday, directed the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State to proceed with the conduct of its ward, local government, and state congresses.

Justice Peter Lifu in his ruling, barred the Department of State Services, the police, the Independent National Electoral Commission and seven others from “stopping, truncating or disrupting” the conduct of the congresses of the party.

But reacting to the conduct of the ward congresses in Rivers State, Ugochinyere stated; “There’s nothing to talk about here. If a group of people, out of desperation decides to have a kindred meeting, that should not bother anybody”.

He took a swipe at former Governor Nyesom Wike as being behind the political crisis in Rivers State urging him to stop.

“I will advise Nyesom Wike to stop this. The joke is becoming too much. There’s a subsisting order of a court few days to the congress that that exercise can no longer hold. But he decided in his desperation alongside with his supporters to gather themselves in their hideout and conducted what I called kindred meeting.

“So what the Wike group had yesterday in the name of congress is nothing but a kindred meeting. It doesn’t go anywhere, it ends there. It ends there, they are talking to themselves and it’s a nullity.

“Let me tell you why it’s a nullity. As longs as there was a subsisting order and he proceeded to do it, the court in question will void whatever is the outcome of the exercise. As it is today, there is no working PDP in Rivers State because we have a group of people who have what we call PDAPC invading our party and are trying to take control of the party.

“And let me also advise because recently, when we came here, we heard about the violence that happened. Let me advise the commissioner of police, there was one man here then who was the commissioner of police, Joseph Mbu or somebody who was also dancing naked with Wike.

“Today he is somewhere, he retired a shameful officer. I will advise the CP, you said you heard about one order on Abuja but you did not hear the order from Rivers State, which was advertised by national papers as ordered by the court. It was advertised to the whole world, you are aware. But you chose to run as though you are running a political security outfit for Nyesom Wike”.

Ugochinyere called for the removal of the commissioner of police, indicating of compromise on the political crisis in Rivers State. “I will advise the Inspector General of Police and the President to call the CP to order, if possible even remove him because that path he is taking can further inflame the already inflamed situation in the country.

“Look at what is happening all over the country and they claimed to love the president but they want to distabilise Rivers State and that can affect the persistent.

The government Is finding hard in terms of addressing the economy needs of our people and here you have a group of people who claim to be working for the president but because of their greed, they want to plug their pipes to state resources they are willing to burn down the state and the whole thing baffles me because what is even the crux of this matter?”

Ugochinyere went on; “We were there when the former speaker and former lawmaker, Amaewhule and his group woke up one morning, even when there was no crisis and joined the APC, thinking that by joining the APC, Tinubu would help them to illegally remove Fubara from office. It backfired.

They didn’t think it well because there was one man in Abuja who was so desperate to capture Rivers State as if it was a private estate. Now, you ran into APC, now you are running around looking for a court that will give you judgment that you are still a lawmaker.

“At the moment they decamped, which all of you were aware, there was no division in PDP. So as long as no division, the constitution is very clear, it’s automatic, your seat is vacant, you don’t need anybody to declare it vacant.

“It’s on that ground that a new leadership emerged. So all these struggle is for him to regain the state house of assembly legitimacy for the purpose of forcing the governor out of office so that they can have access to the resources of the people.

“These people are no longer lawmakers, like I told you. I think it’s high time he gets it into his head. They cannot come back. It doesn’t matter whether you give them support on the streets of Port Harcourt for them to be maiming and killing people they cannot come back and nobody can remove Fubara from the office, only the people that elected him.

“That congress they conducted yesterday, I told you it’s nothing but kindred meeting. But I know that my friend Nyesom Wike will never get tired of doing these things. But I tell you here that as a stakeholder in this party, it’s a nullity. So it’s of no use.”

On the threats by the former local government Chairmen to forcefully take over the local government councils in the state Ugochinyere said; “I pity them. Their tenure finished but because there was one Nebuchadnezzar in Abuja who told them they can remain in office and continue to touch the resources of the people even when their constitutional tenure has expired.

“It’s only a politically mad person that does not understand that tenure is a sacred principle of democracy, that you have a tenure limit. That tenure has ended and then you go to one two-bedroom somewhere and say you can stay in office forever. Has that ever happened before. So I think I need to advise them that it’s over. There’s no power on human earth that can return them to an office that their tenure has expired. I think they need to get it into their heads.

“Let them try and take over the local government offices, if that’s what they want, let them try they will see the consequences. How did they leave the office before? Were they not trying to bring magistrate from Mararaba to swear them in on the morning of that day? When the people of Rivers State rose didn’t they run into Bayelsa?

“So which local government are they going to take over? They cannot take any local government over and if that’s what the CP promised them, it’s a joke, it won’t work. We are talking about an election in a matter of weeks, and people are preparing for the election. There’s going to be an election here, and the people of Rivers State will elect the kind of local government chairmen they want and 319 councilors they want.

The era of the hallelujah boys both at the state legislature and the local government, those tenures have expired, we have moved into a new future. And that’s the era of Rivers development, and as a leading member of the opposition, I cannot sit back and allow these children of mumu style of politics to destroy any part of the opposition-controlled states”. (Nigerian Tribune)

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