By Henry Uche
As the political crisis in Rivers State brews, Senator Magnus Abe, has cautioned Governor Siminalayi Fubara not to forget how he became the chief executive of the oil-rich state. Speaking on Channels TV programme, Politics Today, Abe made case for the peo-Wike 27 members of the State House of Assembly, among other issues.
Your stand on the situation in Rivers
The political situation in River State over the years has been convoluted within the APC where we belong. We have looked at the situation with the recent changes and appointment of the Caretaker Committee for the party in the state. We see it as an opportunity to come together to rebuild the party to support the president’s Renewed Hope agenda. There is no running away that the FCT minister has been an integral part of Tinubu’s administration and a major contributor to his victory in Rivers State. So our decision to work in the interest of the party and the president shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. Any realistic politician would know that it makes no sense for us to say we’re supporting the president and party without working with his appointees. It doesn’t make sense. We put the matter before our stakeholders and they unanimously supported and endorsed our position as the right thing for us to do both for the party and the country as far as APC is concerned in Rivers.
Is Wike now a member of the APC?
There is no confusion here. We are not saying he is a member of APC. Wike is a minister in APC government and we cannot with all due respect and every proper sense of reality decide that as a party, we will ignore the president’s appointee from our own State, who’s is a minister. He doesn’t need to be a member of APC, but he’s an influential figure of APC government and it’s in the interest of the party and the nation to work with him. He was not a member of APC when he led the G- 5 to support the president. At that point, the president didn’t say, no -you are not a member of APC, so you cannot support me. So, if the president didn’t say that, then we cannot say he’s not a member of APC, therefore, we will not work with him, we are following the footsteps of our leader and we will work with him, that’s the decision the stakeholders took and we will work with him, and that is what we are doing here in Rivers State.
Does that mean you have taken side on the face-off with governor Fubara; are you waging a war against the state governor now?
There is no point putting words into my mouth. I don’t know of any war waged against governor Fubara. What I know is there is a crisis in the state which every Nigerian knows. I was not part of the political process or group that brought Governor Fubara to power. So we are not a party to the dispute and whatever circumstances may be. But let me advise again, the executive and legislature are institutions; in the interest of the state, there should be a kind of understanding that would enable them to work together. I think that to ignore all the members of the legislature and other characters and personalities involved in the dispute and focus solely on the FCT minister and personality of the governor is a way of trying to avoid the reality of what can bring peace to the state. If we acknowledge that members of the legislature are also stakeholders in the government and there are some attempts for them to work together, it would be a more practical approach. So, I don’t want to be drawn into that controversy. But most importantly is that, these legislators are now members of our own party of All Progressives Congress (APC) and we will give them the much needed support of our party. There has to be give and take, we’re trying to put our party together after all these challenges we have faced in the state and we feel that the relationship with the FCT minister would help us in that process. W advise those who have challenges to do the needful so that people can work together and the state can have peace and we can move forward. That is where we are as politicians and stakeholders.
Whose interests are you pushing for?
I’m a politician. Politics is not a solo sport, it’s a team sport. You play with others and you have their interest and take them into consideration. I cannot do politics alone in Nigeria. We have always tried our politics with Ahmed Bola Tinubu and everybody in Nigeria is aware of that. So in politics, your leader takes a position and you take the position of your leader and follow through with it. So, the president is working with the minister of FCT, do you think it makes sense for us to say we will not talk and relate with the minister or ignore him, while we support the president? I don’t think that’s a reasonable position for us.
Even if it’s against your personal ideology? That’s even if your support is against your personal ideology?
How can being a member of the APC be against my personal ideology? I was one of those who worked assiduously to bring Wike and Tinubu together. You can confirm that. I was one of those who promoted that idea. I worked very hard to see that they work together, so they working together, has benefited us as members of the Asiwaju team and we cannot now turn around and say it’s against our ideology. People have their differences and it’s not my responsibility to dive into issues that are not directly on my beat, but as a Rivers man, as I said before, the governor should remember how he became governor and people should know that the interest of the people supersedes every other interests. I think it’s wrong to focus on one person when there are interests of some other people that are involved. The governor is there, the House of Assembly is there, if they resolve their differences and see how they can work together, we can move forward even if the minister is not part of it.