•Party defends Akpabio’s donation to party chairmen
•Uduaghan confirms he did not walk out of zonal meeting
Chuks Okocha, Ernest Chinwo, Abdullahi Rabiu and Nkiru Okoh
Rivers State Governor and Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF), Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, has pledged his loyalty to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of which he is a member.
Amaechi is believed to have been at loggerheads with the party leadership and presidency following his style of leadership at the NGF, which some party apparatchiks considered antithetical to the PDP’s interests.
But the Rivers State governor told the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who led members of the National Working Committee (NWC) on a courtesy visit to him in Port Harcourt on Sunday that his administration remained loyal and committed to the party.
He added that his administration would continue to deliver accountable, transparent, developmental and people-oriented leadership to the people of Rivers State.
The PDP NWC members were in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, to meet party stakeholders from the South-south geopolitical zone as part of a nationwide tour by the party’s national secretariat to reconcile aggrieved party members across the country.
Assessing the nationwide tour, the PDP, which kicked off the northern leg of the trip yesterday, described the exercise as a huge success, especially as it serves as a tool for sensitisation of members.
It also defended the N1 million donated to each state chairman of the PDP in the South-south zone by Akwa Ibom State, Chief Godswill Akpabio, during the meeting in Port Harcourt on Sunday.
Amaechi’s assurance of loyalty came on the heels of a statement by his counterpart in Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, that the PDP will continue to maintain its leading role in the country irrespective of the spirited efforts by opposition parties to forge a coalition to wrest power from the ruling party in the 2015 elections.
Amaechi also urged the PDP NWC to fashion out workable modalities to rebuild and reconcile aggrieved party members.
He said: “We will remain in PDP… We support the issue of reconciliation, reconstruction and rebuilding of the party.
“We are in PDP, I have told my cabinet members that if we want to win elections, we must work in such a way that the people are happy with us. Currently, we are popular in Rivers State.
“We have to maintain our popularity while in office and thereafter, and the only way to maintain that popularity is to continue to do what we are doing now, putting the people first.”
While taking stock of the achievements of his administration, Amaechi said his administration was determined to deliver steady power supply to the people by June.
On education, the governor said his administration inherited 1,300 primary schools of three classroom blocks that were dilapidated while some had no chairs in the classrooms and were run without qualified teachers.
However, he explained that his administration had reversed the decay as it had built no less than 500 model primary schools of 14 classroom blocks to address the falling standards of education in the state, adding that the administration was poised to achieve its target of 750 schools.
Earlier, Tukur had expressed satisfaction with the level of projects put in place by the Amaechi administration in the state, saying that they were in line with the party manifesto.
As the PDP began the northern leg of its reconciliation tour yesterday, the party justified the donation made by Akpabio at the South-south stanza of the tour, which held on Sunday in Port Harcourt.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement, defended the action, saying it was a sign of gratitude by the party leadership to its members for the sacrifices they have made in working hard for the party.
“The cost of the venue and other logistics were borne by the host governor and Governor Akpabio showed his commitment to the party faithful by assisting them with transport allowance as well as some welfare.
“Politics all over the world is very expensive and any gesture towards accommodating the sacrifices of the ordinary PDP faithful is important,” he said.
Metuh described as false and misleading reports in the media that Amaechi and his Delta State counterpart, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, walked out of the meeting in Port Harcourt, adding that the governors took permission from Tukur before leaving the meeting.
Meanwhile, the Jigawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has said the ruling PDP will continue to lead the country and will remain dogged in the fight against injustice and corruption.
Lamido, while receiving about 81 opposition party leaders from the 27 local government areas of the state at a rally yesterday in Hadejia, assured the defectors and their followers that they had not made a mistake by joining the largest party in Africa.
Among the defectors was Alhaji Ibrahim Karami Jahun, who dropped his membership of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) card before Lamido and other top PDP leaders in the state.
In a related development, the Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, yesterday denied media reports that he walked out at the South-south zonal executive committee meeting on Sunday.
Speaking through the state Commissioner for Information, Chike Ogeah, the commissioner said: “On arrival at Port Harcourt, the governor had informed the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who had presided over the meeting, of his desire to return to Asaba on the same day.
“Given that Asaba Airport closes to air traffic by 5 pm, he had sought the permission of the chairman to exit the meeting ahead of the airport’s closure to air traffic.
“Tukur had graciously agreed to let him leave to enable him return to Asaba on time. When eventually it was time to leave for the return flight to Asaba, he again notified the chairman, who wished him a safe flight and Amaechi, as the host governor, had to see him off.”
According to him, there was no disagreement to elicit a walk out from anybody as Tukur had conducted the meeting in an atmosphere of candour and camaraderie and before the governor left the meeting, all the parties present had addressed the meeting.
Source: ThisDayLive