ENUGU, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)- The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has issued a stern message to the suspended Governor of the state, Siminalayi Fubara, stating that the party is not a refuge for political wrongdoers and that defection will not absolve him of his alleged misdeeds.
The warning was delivered by the APC State Chairman, Sir Tony Okocha, during a press interaction in Abuja on Tuesday.
He was responding to questions about Governor Fubara’s recent Sallah visit to President Bola Tinubu and the political speculations surrounding the gesture.
According to Okocha, the call for a state of emergency in Rivers and the governor’s suspension are consequences of his actions and not rooted in political rivalries or party alignments.
“If Fubara decides to join the APC, it has nothing to do with the state of emergency in Rivers state. His sins cannot be forgiven because he came to our party,” Okocha asserted.
“You will jump into APC today and your sins are forgiven? That cannot be true. It won’t work that way. Then, it would have made APC as a dumping ground for people who commit misdemeanor and believe that by and large we will come for reconciliation. No. It is not true.”
Okocha further emphasized that the party has not received any formal notice or request for Fubara’s defection and that proper procedures must be followed for anyone seeking to join the APC.
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“He has not spoken to me. He will enter the party through the door not the window. Not only him, there are procedures for defection to another party and if he claims to be a politician, he would know that all politics is local, he would try and defect in his ward. From there it will come to us and my ward chairmen. I have asked, nobody brought any information about him entering APC,” he said.
On whether he was concerned about Fubara’s visit to the President, Okocha dismissed any such worries, noting the season of Sallah and the open-door nature of the presidency.
“How can I be worried that somebody visited my president? Don’t forget it was also the season of Sallah. Yesterday, I read somewhere that the former Governor of Ogun State, Chief Osoba paid Sallah homage and I don’t know whether you also saw the President in the company of Chief Nyesom Wike.
“So we cannot be worried, we cannot gag the President to say you will see Mr A, you will not see Mr B. Perhaps, if I had made an application to see Mr President, I would have been there with my team,” he explained.
Addressing claims that Fubara might be making efforts toward reconciliation, Okocha firmly denied any such development, insisting there are no peace moves from the suspended governor’s camp.
“I am not a prophet of doom. I can only say to you with the benefit of knowledge that I am not aware of any reconciliatory move. No reconciliation is going on, is it going to talk to Mr President? But Mr President has said go and make peace. No attempt at that. I am not aware of any reconciliatory moves by Fubara and his team,” he said.