BY: Ikenna Oluka
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has said it won’t join the African Action Congress (AAC) to protest the second term victory of Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, in the just concluded gubernatorial election in the state.
APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, made this known during the weekend while fielding questions from reporters in Abuja.
He noted that although some local government area results were questionable, the APC would not challenge them at the Election Tribunal because the party had nothing to do with the polls.
Issa-Onilu 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.
“You knew that the Supreme Court ruled that we were not qualified to contest. So, on that basis, whatever what happened in Rivers, whether at the local government that gave 80,000 votes during the presidential election and 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 action if they find it necessary but for us at APC, we didn’t have the opportunity to contest unfairly in Rivers State,” he said.
Recall that the APC National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole had earlier disowned the alliance between the party’s faction in Rivers state led by Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, and the AAC, to unseat the incumbent Governor Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.