With his resignation from the All Progressives Congress, APC, on Wednesday, Senator Magnus Abe’s declaration that he would be on the Rivers State guber ballot is crystallising.
THE CONCLAVE gathered authoritatively that Abe is heading for the Social Democratic Party, SDP, where he is expected to be gifted the governorship ticket.
There were reports from sources close to Abe that a vast majority of his supporters had already moved to the SDP in droves, before his resignation from the APC on Wednesday.
Many more are expected to move with him when he eventually unfolds as the face of the SDP in Rivers. Deadline for substitution of candidates for governorship and House of Assembly as scheduled by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is August 10.
His membership of the SDP, THE CONCLAVE reports, would not affect his support for Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidential project on the APC platform.
Abe remains the most formidable rallying point of Tinubu’s presidential project in Rivers.
THE CONCLAVE learnt that he is working quietly in concert with the State Governor, Barrister Nyesom Wike, to ensure victory for Tinubu in Rivers State during the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
Both Abe and Wike, despite belonging to different political parties, relate with Tinubu with a great deal of respect as their political leader.
Tinubu is believed to have entered into a quiet agreement with Wike and a former governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose, to work together for a southern presidency since they could not lock down the presidential ticket of their party, the PDP, in the South of Nigeria.
THE CONCLAVE also learnt that in the political ecology of Rivers State, Wike and Abe are working together to ensure that a former governor of the State and former Transportation minister, Rotimi Amaechi, loses his support base in Rivers.
Recall that Amaechi, Wike and Abe belonged to the political camp of former Governor of the State, Peter Odili.
THE CONCLAVE learnt that there was a political arrangement to ensure that the troika benefitted from the governorship of the state in succession.
But Amaechi, as learnt, moved as a sitting governor, to disrupt the arrangement when he recommended Wike, who was then his Chief of Staff in Rivers State Government House for ministerial appointment in Abuja just to keep him far away from the home base.
He also encouraged Abe, who was at a point his Secretary to the State Government, to go to the Senate in Abuja also to keep him far away from home.
But while in the PDP, Amaechi fell out with then President Goodluck Jonathan, defected to the APC from the PDP to work with the opposition APC to upend Jonathan’s 2015 reelection bid. The move succeeded.
Meanwhile, Wike who had become the face of local opposition to Amaechi in Rivers launched his governorship bid on the PDP platform as Minister of State for Education and was able, with the support of the Jonathan presidency and pro-PDP sentiments in Rivers, to win the governorship election by defeating APC’s governorship candidate in the 2015 poll, Dakuku Peterside.
THE CONCLAVE reports that whereas Abe was the only guber aspirant as of the time the APC screening committee was on ground in Port Harcourt to screen him as the sole aspirant at the party secretariat, Amaechi was said to have caused a call to be put through to Port Harcourt compelling the committee to also screen Dakuku Peterside.
A member of the Screening Committee told THE CONCLAVE how some militants were mobilised to invade the venue of the screening to disrupt and delay the process.
He said Peterside sauntered into the venue without any airs to be screened.
He stated that the decelopment was the beginning of the crisis in Rivers APC between Amaechi and Abe.
Amaechi, who had visited Abe’s home in Abuja to vow before his wife that he should forget his ambition to be Rivers governor, was said to have used his influence as governor and Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council at that point to give Peterside an undeserved edge, consideration and support that saw him become APC’s controversial guber candidate.
Abe dragged Peterside through courts in protest thus giving Wike the opportunity to win the guber election.
The Amaechi-Abe rivalry continued until 2019 when the APC, having controversially produced Tonye Princewill as guber candidate, lost the opportunity to field him as the candidate by the verdict of the court.
The veridct caught up with candidates for all elective offices- from Governorship and National Assembly to State House of Assembly.
The PDP was on a roller coaster, contesting against the remaining small parties. It was a no-contest situation for the PDP as it swept all the elective positions.
2023 presents another oportunity.
Amaechi had again moved to support the emergence of Tonye Princewill as guber candidate with Abe putting up a fight against the alleged illegal process that eventually produced Princewill’s guber candidature.
THE CONCLAVE learnt that Abe was more strategic this time round, not throwing himself into the process as to emerge from.a parallel primary.
He bided his time in pursuit of a viable option that has just seen him dump the APC for the SDP where he is pencilled down as the guber candidate.
THE CONCLAVE learnt that he may enjoy the support of Wike to emerge as governor if their original plans remain intact.
A source even hinted that it was the reason Wike ensured the emergence of his former Accountant General, little known Siminialayi Fubara, as the guber candidate of the PDP in the state.
The quiet plan, as learnt, is to prop up Abe against a weak PDP candidate, and the candidate of the APC who is running on an eroded and weakened political party platform that is being tended by Amaechi who, as claimed, has lost his political gravitas in Rivers due largely to defection by a good number of his solid supporters.
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