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From Fred Itua, Abuja
A former chief of staff to former governor of Rivers State, Tony Okocha, on Tuesday, indicted his boss, Rotimi Amaechi, over how allegedly worked against the All Progressive Congress (APC) during the February 25th presidential election in the state.
Okocha, who was Amaechi’s chief of staff when he held sway as governor of Rivers State, in an interview with newsmen in his in Abuja, said the APC was left almost in disarray when Amaechi and Magnus Abe abandoned the party in the middle of the sea, delibrately leaving it to be submerged by storm until former governor Nyesom Wike came to the rescue.
Okocha expressed dismay over claims by Abe specifically, who he said wrote Tinubu off in the presidential contest coming back to arrogate to himself the first son of Tinubu in Rivers State, just as he challenged him to produce “results from his two polling units, ward and local government” where Tinubu was said to have lost to Abe’s party.
He said: “My worry is that you may just not have agreed to work with Tinubu. It is a different ball game. But that you worked with Tinubu and then at the point that you were needed the most, mid-sea, you abandoned the ship. You rejected, you goofed on your own. You ported to an another party or chose not to work for Tinubu again, and then only to return when the victory is here to say I was Tinubu’s first son. Does that work?.
“He (Abe) said that as a member of PSC, the strategy committee, that while they were reviewing states, vis-a-vis how they stand, the possibilities and impossibilities of Tinubu winning in respective states, Rivers State was not counted in as one of the states where Tinubu will score 25% at the time.
“So for him, remaining there would have been absurd. So he felt ‘okay, this man will not win, so let me go to another party to try my own personal interest. And I am asking him when he got to this SDP, did he go there as an ordinary member? No, he went out and became the candidate of the party.
“You now want to eulogize Tinubu. You didn’t know that Tinubu was the best person where you left him for another party. It is now that he has won you want to grandstand, you want to eulogize just for appointment. It will not work. I will not support it. It is against common sense.”
Reacting to claims that he earlier raised that Amaechi worked for Atiku, Okocha described his former boss as a bad loser who refused to be a good sportsman, using surrogates within the APC to sabotage Tinubu’s chances in the state.
He claimed: “Yes, he is not denying it. Amaechi refused to be pacified, even when Tinubu visited him in his house and said let’s work together. He refused. He attended only two rallies, campaigns in whole of Nigeria.”
Okocha recounted how Amaechi in one of his interviews about the credibility of the 2023 presidential election, descredited the election and even went further to say that Professor Yakubu Mahmoud was a product of Tinubu’s political empire.
“Consequently, Amaechi deployed Tony Cole, who was the APC governorship candidate in the state at the time to do his bidding,” he said.
“The man (Tony Cole) was neither here nor there. And I told you that as PCC coordinator, he did nothing. No billboards, no banners, no posters, no jingles. In his campaigns, he never mentioned Tinubu. In his polling unit, he was there seated, paying money, mobilising for Atiku in compliance and in keeping with the directive given to him by Amaechi”
“He was scared that if he identified with Tinubu, it will rub off on him in his own governorship quest. So for him it was safe not ever to mention anything called Tinubu.
“What I know is that the preponderance of those who supported Tinubu alongside me who stood and stuck to our guns for Tinubu, we gave ourselves a name, amalgamation of Tinubu, Shettima support groups in Rivers State- 48 groups.”
