The Peoples Democratic Party Campaign Council in Rivers State has alleged that former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, is secretly working for the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
The Rivers PDP also claimed to have identified Amaechi as a member of the ‘wicked cabal’ punishing Nigerians with the current fuel and naira swap crises and challenged Amaechi to deny the allegation.
The Director of Publicity and Communications, Rivers State PDP-CC, Chief Ogbonna Nwuke, made the claim in a statement in Port Harcourt on Monday.
According to Nwuke, Amaechi recently reconciled with members of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council in the state and has since been working secretly and holding meetings with Atiku and others in the cabal.
He said, “As a political party, we have gathered credible intelligence which supports the view that the leader of the APC, Rotimi Amaechi, is a member of the cabal that has caused the naira crisis as well as the fuel scarcity and brought untold hardships to ordinary Rivers people and other Nigerians.
“Only recently, he reconciled with members of the presidential Campaign Council in Rivers State as part of the carefully-woven plot. We equally know for certain that he has been holding secret meetings with the PDP presidential candidate.
“We challenge the former Minister of Transportation to deny this fact. Let him deny that he is not one of those that are working with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar at this time to undermine the genuine aspiration of the people of southern Nigeria.”
He, however, dismissed claims made by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress in Rivers State, Tonye Cole, that Governor Nyesom Wike was making moves to join the APC through the back door.
“The governor has maintained a principled position that he will not leave a party that he helped to build. The stance of Governor Nyesom Wike, since the crisis erupted in the party at the national level, is well known.
“Wike has insisted that he and members of the G-5 would remain in the PDP in order to ensure that the tenets which made the party a destination of choice are not destroyed by power mongers and selfish politicians who have little faith in the unity and stability of Nigeria.”
But reacting to the claims, the Amaechi-led APC in the state described the PDP and Wike as confused and clueless.
The party spoke through its Publicity Secretary, Darlington Nwanju.
Nwauju stated, “Nigerians can now see through the web of lies, evil machinations and sophistry of the clueless PDP administration in Rivers State as the continuous campaigns of calumny against former Governor Amaechi keep falling like a pack of cards.
“Not too long ago, Governor Wike, who is the leader of the faction of PDP in Rivers State that authored these false claims, was seen on live television boasting that the former transportation minister no longer has access to Aso Rock Villa.
“Today, the same faction of the PDP shamelessly names the former governor as a member of the cabal.
“Should we take such persons seriously? Nigerians can easily see through these tantrums as claptrap by failed politicians who have made wrong political permutations and are now struggling to point fingers.
“Even the author of the statement does not believe in what he signed off.”
