Two governorship aspirants under the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, have dismissed reports of factionalization of the party in Rivers and Delta states, saying what Nigerians are seeing as factions would collapse in a matter of days.
Chief Dumo Lulu Briggs and Victor Ochei, both governorship aspirants of the party in Rivers and Delta stated this respectively after submitting their nomination and expression of interest forms to the national secretariat of the party on Thursday in Abuja.
Briggs said, “there is a lot of misconceptions, we do not have factions in APC in Rivers State. People in the party have sympathy for certain persons and that, you find across the entire country, not just in Rivers State.”
Ochei, a former Speaker of the Delta State Assembly, on his part described the current administration in the state as the worst since the advent of the Fourth Republic.
He said: “These factions will fizzle out after the primaries because the party will take over the campaigns. By the time we go to the primaries, the people will decide who should lead them. That is democracy at its peak.”
Meanwhile, the senator representing Rivers South East, Magnus Abe, has insisted that he had no major issue with Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, on who becomes the governor of Rivers State.
Abe told journalists at the national secretariat: “Everybody knows the history of Rivers State, the violence and bloodletting. I believe it is time to bring that to an end and unite the state for meaningful development and I believe I have the capacity to heal the wounds and pull Rivers people together for the development of the state.
“My disagreement with Amaechi is not deep. He does not want me to be the governor. I believe that the decision should be left to the people. If they vote me as candidate, I will accept. If they do otherwise, I will accept. Amaechi is not running. If he was running, he is my leader, I wouldn’t run against him,” said Abe.
