Rivers State: APC Is Not Afraid Of The Courts, We Will Contest And Win – Nwauju

The publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Darlington Nwauju has expressed confidence that the party would contest and win the 2023 governorship election in the state.

He spoke against the backdrop of a recent court order that nullified the election of all candidates of the party produced during its primary election.

Naija News recalls that a Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt on October 25, nullified all primary elections conducted by the Rivers APC over the unlawful exclusion of some party members as delegates to the primaries.

The presiding Judge, Justice E A Obile had ruled over a suit filed by one George Orlu and four others as plaintiffs against Rivers APC.

Orlu and four others had sought nullification of all the party’s primaries over exclusion from the delegates list.

Reacting during an interview with the Punch published on Sunday, Nwauju expressed confidence that the order would not stand before a court of higher jurisdiction.

He argued further that all attempts to have the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the only party contesting the 2023 governorship polls in Rivers State would not work.

He alleged that the administration of Governor Nyesom Wike is deploying state resources to ensure only the PDP is on the ballot for the election.

In his words, “With due respect to the judgment of Justice Emmanuel Obile’s court, our party cannot be stopped from contesting and winning the 2023 elections in Rivers State. All attempts at stopping all other political parties except the PDP are geared towards having an open goalpost to score against the run of play, and these shall fall flat.”

“A popular government or political party will not resort to deploying state resources to stop other parties from contesting against her. Why are they afraid of a contest? But to answer your question directly, the cases brought against the Rivers State APC were matters pertaining to our (APC) internal affairs and the Supreme Court had in March 2021 in a case between Dele Moses, four others and the APC declared that political parties were like clubs and that no court had the jurisdiction to protect the rights and privileges of members of a club.”

We Will Pursue It To The Supreme Court

He expressed confidence that the courts would not be used to deny the APC and other opposition parties in Rivers State the opportunity to partake in the 2023 elections.

While expressing confidence in the judiciary, Nwauju said: “So, the APC in Rivers State is not afraid of the courts as we have implicit faith and belief in the judiciary in Nigeria not to yield itself to the shenanigans of lazy politicians to deny Rivers people the opportunity for a genuine alternative.

“We believe that even though our matters get to the Supreme Court, Nigerians shall see that with a dispassionate consideration of our matters, justice shall come to us because we know that those who took us to court do not have their names in the membership register of our great party. Justice shall surely come because the civil servants in Rivers State deserve to be motivated with promotions. Pensioners deserve to be paid, scholarships have to be reintroduced and permanent solutions must be found to the perennial flooding challenge in the Orashi region.

“Again, security must be ensured for business owners and more investments need to be attracted to the state to increase our internally generated revenue; and primary health centres must be resuscitated across the 23 local government areas. I can go on and on. A cosmopolitan state like Rivers deserves better and cannot continue to be held down by the intimidation and exclusivity that we see today in the governance of our state.”