Amaechi-backed APC faction takes Wike-backed faction to the cleaners over alleged disrespect to elders
By Ignatius Chukwu
Two political camps in Rivers State have been fighting over every point. Now, it seems to be about need to respect the values of the state by not insulting elders and mentors. Report in BD Sunday shows the trend.
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Those who, out of love or for a fee, have to speak in defence of the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, must learn the sacred traditions and culture of the Rivers people imbedded in respect for elders.
Such hirelings, according to aggrieved leaders, must respect and recognize the status of persons such as Ada George, onetime governor of Rivers State believed to be the grand godfather of most leaders in the present dispensation from Peter Odili through to now.
This call came on Friday, May 2, 2025, from the desk of Darlington Nwauju, the factional spokesman of the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC). His faction backed by the likes of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi (former governor of Rivers State) is the faction recognized by the courts, while the faction headed by Tony Okocha, regarded as Wike’s strong pillar in the state, is recognized by the National Working Committee (NWC) of the ruling party at the centre.
Now, the court-recognised faction says in a statement issued in Port Harcourt that it is shocked at what it called choreographed responses dished out to the public by agents/hirelings of the FCT Minister in an alleged attempt to shield their master from the needless political crises brought upon Rivers State owing to what the faction calls greed, vainglory and outright narcissism.
“We find it distasteful, condemnable and a collective insult on the sensibilities of all Rivers people to have people with zero reputation in their blood, who at all seasons (in other to feed their filthy lust), offer themselves as hirelings to any available bidder, to push forward the weirdest political fairytales.
“Characteristically, predictably, and in keeping with the strange culture of disrespect for elders and traditional rulers, two press statements were issued on April 10 2025, by two vuvuzelas of the FCT Minister – Lere Olayinka and Tony Okocha, springing to the defence of their paymaster, abandoning the core issues raised and regrettably casting aspersions, like people under the influence of strong wine, on Ada-George, a chief and former Governor of Rivers State.”
The statement said since the gentlemen earlier mentioned are known aides to the FCT Minister, “We are not surprised at the display of incivility and rascality dressed in falsehood – after all, they have both taken temporal shelter under the shadows of an unrepentant bully. The culture of acting as a rough-neck while addressing traditional rulers, leaders and peers or mounting hallowed places like worship centres just to curse and mock people are all normal for their paymaster.
“Our concern as a political party is to ensure we set the records straight and save the public, especially the younger generation of Rivers people, from the ceaseless deception, double-speak and pretentious manipulation of a section of our people inorder to achieve immediate or short term political goals.”
Nwauju said Rivers APC had studied both releases issued by individuals allegedly plagued by congenital reasoning diseases, and wish to expose what it regarded as falsehoods.
Nwauju said Olayinka now speaks for Wike after hanging around with Segun Oni and Ayo Fayose, saying there were issues of credibility with him at least from the hints from someone such as the younger brother of Ayo Fayose who knew him from close quarters as recently exposed in a viral video.
Nwauju said: “Clearly, a morally depraved, character-less individual with no virtues cannot address one of the fathers of our dear state without getting an appropriate response to reformat his brain.”
He said Olayinka lied in his statement when he referred to what Olayinka said, thus; “Records of his involvement in the activities of the Bush Boys are well documented in the report of the 2008 Justice Kayode Eso-led Rivers State Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which heard accusations that he (Ada George) sponsored the Bush Boys and September 2001 violence”.
The APC factional spokesman said: “We wish to challenge him and his paymaster to publish the Justice Kayode Eso Report even when we know they cannot since it will expose these wicked lies. But for the sake of the unsuspecting public, we wish to state emphatically that the 571 pages report did not indict Ada George for the sponsorship of the Bush Boys as maliciously claimed. To put it in proper context, no paragraph of the findings/recommendations of that Report, indicted Ada George whose tenure as Governor between January 2 1992 to November 17 1993, predates the jurisdiction of the Eso Panel.”
Nwauju moved to the second report that aggrieved his factions, mentioning Tony Okocha who he said also lied. He said Okocha did not speak the truth when he said Rivers people cannot forget in a hurry the level of inter-communal crisis with all the trappings of ethnic cleansing which were the hallmark of his (Ada George) government within the short time it lasted.” Continuing with this falsehood, Okocha said the only recorded achievement which the government of Ada George can be recorded for, and traced to, was the numerous inter-communal conflicts, and inter-ethnic violence across communities in the state, which he said was widely believed to be sponsored by his government.
Nwauju dissociated their party from what he called infantile and baseless statements, saying it was public knowledge that two court rulings/judgment orders have first dismantled the illegal Caretaker Committee and the purported congresses (referring to S.H. Aprioku’s judgment of August 12 2024 & Godswill Obomanu’s ruling of December 20 2024). It amounts to promotion of lawlessness and disrespect for the rule of law for any individual, group or organization to choose what court order(s) to obey or disobey. Therefore, Rivers State APC never issued or endorsed any statement against Ada George.”
The factional APC urged the general public to discountenance such comments from Okocha and as they said it is the handiwork of what he termed ‘imposter, wannabe, and fifth columnist’. “To strengthen our position, however, on the false claims made by Tony Okocha, we wish to remind Rivers people and Nigerians that while this agent of the FCT Minister has chosen to ‘ignore the speck in his own eyes’, we remind him and his congenitally defective memory of the human beings slaughtered at Omoku and other places, bombing of campaign venues, destruction of properties of political opponents, imprisonment of opponents, attack on media houses, reign of military decree in the guise of Executive Orders, etc, that took place under the watch of his paymaster.
“Our intervention is to ensure Rivers people are not deceived by the likes of Okocha and Olayinka, because our state witnessed the worst form of dictatorship, political crises, and bad governance with an opaque budgetary system for eight years. All these are what Okocha and friends want Rivers people to easily forget because he has found a new role as a promoter and enabler of emergency rule, gained sophistry in conflict-preneurship and has a badge in fratricidal politics. Having fitted perfectly into the spoiler’s role against the genuine APC and its candidates in 2019, he now wants to switch into the ghost mode of a deliverer for same platform he and his friends exchanged for cash since 2018.”
He said even if people agreed that Okocha was not aware of any recorded achievement of the Ada George administration, “We understand his current situation as a man under the hypnotic influence of a fellow man. We will ignore his mischief by listing a few of the projects undertaken/executed by the Ada George administration – Kpean-Andoni-Bonny Road (now christened Unity Road which was conceived, designed and started by the Ada George administration; Airport-NTA-Ada George Road; Ada George-Mile 3 Road; Construction of Iriebe trailer park; Okrika ring road; Construction of a state-of-the-art library at RSU; Yenagoa/Kolo/Nembe Road (now in Bayelsa state); Elekahia-Trans Amadi link Road; Elekahia-Pabod Brewery By-Pass Road; Emohua-Degema-Abonnema Road.”
He alos mentioned commencement of construction of Rivers State House in Abuja; construction of Elekahia-Rumukalagbor street (St. John’s link road); Construction of Bonny waterside shore protection/landing jetty; and many more.
The spokesman thus invited Rivers people and Nigerians to now judge the facts against the congenitally defective imaginations of Olayinka and Okocha. “We have mentioned some of the achievements of the Ada George administration under the space of 22months which Okocha’s impaired assessment will never acknowledge.
“No matter how fast deceits, half-truths and outright lies travel, the truth must catch up with it. We render an unreserved apology on behalf of Rivers APC to our former Governor and elder statesman, Ada George, for the lies published against him and the failed attempt by hirelings to distort history.”
