Rivers APC Declares Fubara’s Defection Would Not Wipe Away His Wrongs

The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned suspended Governor Siminalayi Fubara that switching from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the APC will not guarantee his absolution. The party clarified that it does not serve as a refuge for “political sinners.”

Caretaker Committee Chairman of the APC in Rivers, Tony Okocha, made this statement on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to speculations surrounding Governor Fubara’s recent Sallah visit to President Bola Tinubu and the implications it could have on his political future.

Okocha made it clear that the governor’s suspension and the declaration of a state of emergency in the state were based purely on governance issues and not partisan politics.

He said, “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.

“You will jump into the APC today, and your sins are forgiven? That cannot be true. It won’t work that way. Then, it would have made the APC a dumping ground for people who commit misdemeanours and believe that, by and large, we will come for reconciliation. No. It is not true. 

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 to defect in his ward. From there, it will come to us and my ward chairmen. I have asked, but nobody brought any information about him entering the APC.”

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Asked whether he was worried about Fubara’s meeting with the president, Okocha said the APC had nothing to worry about.

“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 EN 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 said.

Okocha also dismissed reports of a possible reconciliatory move being embarked on by Gov. Fubara, saying there was nothing like that.

He said, “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.”