Rivers guber: APC dissociates itself from AAC’s protest

Romanus Ugwu, Abuja

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it will not join the African Action Congress (AAC) to protest the outcome of just concluded March 16 Rivers state governorship election.

The party described as local arrangement, the misconstrued alliance between it and the AAC in the election.

APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, who made the clarification while responding to question of whether the victory of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) was a big loss to the APC, noted that though some of the results were questionable, the ruling party will not join the AAC to protest the outcome of the election.

Speaking to newsmen, at the weekend, on the feeling of the party over PDP’s victory, he said: “It is not true that APC felt hurt over PDP’s victory. We don’t have anything to do with the Rivers State election. APC didn’t have candidates in the election and that is why, from the beginning, we didn’t throw ourselves so much into it.

“The Supreme Court ruled that we were not qualified to contest, so, on that basis, whatever happened in Rivers, where at a local government that gave 80,000 votes during the presidential election, suddenly produced 320,000 votes for Wike during governorship election, didn’t hurt us in any way.

“If INEC says that was correct, fine, it is up to the parties involved to take actions if they find it necessary, but for us at APC, as a party, we didn’t have the opportunity to contest, unfairly, in Rivers State,” he said.

On the allegation that APC adopted the AAC during the election, when a chieftain of the party worked directly with opposition party, the party spokesperson said: “No, we did not go into alliance with AAC. What became the issue last time was whether the actions of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, amounted to anti-party activities, and I said it did not, because he did not deny any of our candidates anything in Rivers State.

“I separated what had happened in Rivers from Ogun and Imo states, where we had our own candidates, yet, our members worked against our candidates and worked for some other candidates. It was different in Rivers. Whatever local arrangement they had there, we were not aware of it, we were not part of it. I’m sure, you didn’t see anybody there campaigning for anybody outside of APC.”