Politics
Fubara, Wike camps clash as police takeover Rivers PDP secretariat
The police action followed alleged moves by both the Aaron Chukwuemeka-led executive loyal to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, and the Robinson Ewor-led executive loyal to Governor Siminalayi Fubara to resume at the party secretariat.
On Monday, January 13, 2024, the state High Court presided over by Justice Stephen Jumbo, in a ruling on interlocutory injunction sought by Edwin Woko and three others, restrained Chukwuemeka and others from parading themselves as executive members of the PDP in the state.
Woko and three others, all PDP members, challenged the congresses that produced Chukwuemeka’s executive committee, arguing that the congresses conducted between July and August 2024 violated an existing court order, rendering it illegal.
A state High Court presided over by Justice Charles Wali, on July 20, 2024, stopped the PDP from going ahead with the congresses, but in defiance, the Wike-led faction of the party held the congresses on July 27, August 10, and August 31, without Fubara’s faction participation.
There have been crises in the state since October 2023 after a move by the lawmakers loyal to Wike to impeach Fubara failed.
Following the court ruling, the Ewor-led caretaker executive committee loyal to Fubara was announced and was set to assume office on Thursday.
Our correspondent who visited the party secretariat reported that while a team of heavily armed anti-riot police stationed at the PDP office with several police vans, Chukwuemeka managed to enter the secretariat, claiming he remained the party’s authentic chairman in the state.
The security operatives blocked both ends of the road leading to the secretariat, leading to a temporary traffic snarl when the correspondent visited.
Briefing newsmen, Ewor, who announced his faction would take over the party secretariat on Thursday, said he would not force himself into the party secretariat, adding that he was interested in a peaceful atmosphere in the state.
He said the security agencies advised the party to shelve its plans to take over the secretariat, as they were already on the ground to prevent any potential violence.
He called on the national leadership to recognise Fubara as the party’s leader in the state and to work with the new leadership at the state, local government, and ward levels.
He, however, vowed to suspend members found wanting for anti-party activities during the 2023 elections.
Ewor was making a veiled reference to Wike, who supported President Bola Tinubu, then-presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, against his party’s presidential standard-bearer and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
He appealed to party supporters and faithful to remain calm, assuring them that the party was taking necessary steps to take possession of the secretariat.
“We shall, also in the next few days, set up a disciplinary committee to deal with issues of anti-party activities, especially during the 2023 general election and beyond and every other activity by party members which are capable of bringing the party to disrepute.
“The party is supreme. We shall uphold the supremacy of the party. We shall implement the manifestoes of the party and constitution,” he said.
In a separate news briefing at the party secretariat, Chukwuemeka insisted that his executive was duly elected.
“This morning, I deemed it fit that we will address a press conference so that everyone will be aware of what we are doing in PDP Rivers State.
“I want to say that here we are today is the state secretariat of the PDP in Rivers, ably led by myself, Chukwuemeka Aaron, as the state chairman of this party.
“I was duly elected, all the excos that were elected with me are here seated. We started as a caretaker committee of our party and we were saddled with the responsibility of conducting a fresh election to usher in a duly elected state, local government and ward executives.”
Chukwuemeka debunked claims that he defected to the APC, saying he remained a member of the PDP.
He added, “I have worked for this party since 1999, and I have served in various capacities, including local government party secretary, LG party chairman, deputy state chairman, and now state chairman.
“I have never defected from the PDP, and I remain committed to the party’s ideals and values.”
On the recent court ruling that nullified his emergence as state chairman, he described the judgment as “not executory,” saying he would appeal it.
Chukwuemeka called on the governor to allow peace to reign in the state.
“This is my office, we have taken possession and we cannot leave here.
“Whatever court judgment they have gotten, we are going to appeal it. We will follow due processes and ensure that there is peace and order in the state.
“We need peace in Rivers State and we cannot continue to file one litigation after another. We are peace-loving and law-abiding citizens, and we will not be intimidated by those who seek to undermine our party,” he said.
When contacted, the spokesperson of the state police command, Grace Iringe-Koko, said she was in a meeting and promised to revert.
She had, however, yet to do so at the time of filing this report.
By Okey Maduforo Awka
The former member that represented Anambra East and West Federal Constituency Chief Chinedu Obidigwe has denied a social media handle where he was said to have made Prof Charles Soludo the Governor of Anambra state.
Obidigwe further stated that the report did neither emanate from him or from his Media Aides urging the party not to believe what he called attempt at setting a negative agenda in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).
Obidigwe who is an Aspirant of the party for the Anambra East and West Federal Constituency accused enemies of the party being sponsored by opposition parties to creat problems .
According to the Media Assistant to Obidigwe Mr Dominic Okagbue in a statement;
“The attention of Hon. Chinedu Benjamin Obidigwe has been drawn to misleading and unfounded claims/propaganda being circulated on various social media platforms through a pseudo account, alleging that Obidigwe said he installed the Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, as Governor in 2021”
“We wish to state, without any iota of equivocation, that such a statement never emanated from Hon. Chinedu Obidigwe. It is a desperate move by his political enemies who are bent on tarnishing his image as a tool and technique to advance their unmerited aspirations”
“Obidigwe, in 2021, was merely an electorate with just one vote. Even though he voted for the Governor and APGA, the question remains: can one man’s vote make a Governor?”
“Governor Soludo was elected and made Governor through the collective votes of Ndi Anambra, both in his first and second terms. We therefore call on the reading public to disregard such rumours and treat them as faceless and unfounded allegations geared towards the character assassination of an innocent man” he said.
A former Kano State Governor and leader of the Kwankwasiyya Movement, Rabiu Kwankwaso, says northern political leaders conducted a deliberate assessment of potential allies before settling on Peter Obi as the most capable partner to prosecute the 2027 presidential campaign.
He dismissed concerns about a hidden power struggle between his camp and Obi’s.Politics
Kwankwaso made the disclosure in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, offering one of his most detailed accounts yet of how the North-Southeast political alliance within the NDC was formed.
“I looked around together with our leadership in the north to say, okay, who do we think is capable? Who can come and work together with us honestly so that we can move this country? Along the line, we realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it. That’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
Kwankwaso, a two-term former governor of Kano State and the presidential candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party in 2023, leads the Kwankwasiyya movement, a grassroots political force with deep loyalty across Kano and parts of northern Nigeria.Nigeria travel guide
He left the NNPP amid internal disputes before joining the NDC alongside Obi earlier this month.
Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, ran on the Labour Party platform in 2023 and drew massive youth-driven support across the South and urban centres, though he did not win.
Both men formally joined the NDC on Sunday, May 3, defecting from the crisis-hit African Democratic Congress.Politics
At the party’s national convention on Saturday in Abuja, Kwankwaso backed the NDC’s decision to zone its 2027 presidential ticket to the South, describing it as a step toward fairness, healing and national cohesion.
Responding to a question about whether the alliance concealed a quiet rivalry between both camps, Kwankwaso argued that friction between principals and their deputies was a product of greed, not structural tension.
“The problem people are having, especially leaders, is that they are too greedy to the extent that they begin to have issues. There is so much to do. You don’t have to fight your deputy,” he said.
He said his record as a former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, and later as governor of Kano State, showed that political partnerships could hold under pressure.
“I had an opportunity to work with my speaker and we worked very well. I was in Kano for eight years despite the difficulty of my then deputy governor. We were able to work for eight years amicably to the extent that I handed over to him,” he said.
Kwankwaso extended the argument beyond his personal experience, saying the same principle applied at the federal level.
In the Senate and other places, in the NDDC, we worked amicably with people. There is so much to be done and that’s why you have even ministers, other executives, advisors and so on. I don’t see from my experiences of the past why deputies or vice would fight with the president or governor,” he said.
He grounded the alliance in Nigerian political history, tracing a lineage of productive North-Southeast partnerships from the first republic to the present.Nigeria travel guide
“Right from the beginning, this sort of alliance has been in existence. Now we are going back to what Tafawa Balewa did during their time,” he said.
He also referenced the collaboration between former Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and leaders of the NCNC, as well as that of former President Shehu Shagari and his vice president, Alex Ekwueme, in the second republic.
“So also in the second republic, immediately after the war, our leaders, Shagari and others, worked very closely with the southeast, with Alex Ekwueme as his vice president. They are our friends. We want to work together with them,” he said.Politics
Kwankwaso also noted that subsequent administrations had shifted power-sharing away from the South-East, a pattern he suggested the current alliance was correcting.
“There was a change during the third republic where for many obvious reasons an election was annulled and the government under the military decided to bring in Shonekan from the South-West.
Even after that, the military and other leaders worked together and brought in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from the South-West again. Even Bola Tinubu probably is a beneficiary of all that,” he said.
He was emphatic that the choice of Obi was not driven by regional sentiment alone.
“It wasn’t just because we are going to the South-West just because of the South-West. No. We realised that Peter Obi is at the forefront of it and that’s why we all accepted to work together,” he said.Political candidate profile
The movement of both men into the NDC has triggered a wave of defections, with senators, House of Representatives members and political blocs aligned with their former coalition gravitating toward the new party, rapidly reshaping calculations ahead of the 2027 elections.
The alliance pairs Kwankwaso’s northern grassroots structure and disciplined voter mobilisation with Obi’s national youth engagement and urban electoral momentum, positioning the NDC as one of the main opposition platforms set to challenge President Bola Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress in 2027
Former Kano State Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso has dismissed suggestions that his exit from the African Democratic Congress has created a damaging split in the opposition.
He said he and Atiku Abubakar may yet work together before the 2027 general election.
Kwankwaso spoke in an interview on Arise TV on Monday, responding to concerns that his move to the Nigeria Democratic Congress alongside Peter Obi had effectively divided the opposition into two competing blocs ahead of the polls.
“Now, we may still work together before the election. I personally, and I think even Obi himself, decided to leave ADC not because we are fighting with Atiku or anybody there. We decided to leave that party because we realised that there are some issues,” he said
He said the ADC was contending with three major unresolved problems that he believed would make it difficult for the party to field candidates, without specifying what those issues were.
“Whether they will be able to field candidates in that party or not is just a matter of time. It’s not like we had a primary election,” he said
The remarks come after Atiku recently claimed on Arise TV that Kwankwaso’s popularity was confined to Kano State and further divided there by Governor Abba Yusuf.
Atiku, who is seeking the presidency on the ADC platform, also described himself as the most popular politician of northern extraction, saying none of his contemporaries, including Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Nasir El-Rufai, commanded a voter base across the North as wide as his.
Kwankwaso did not engage the slight directly, but made clear he bore no grudge.
“Politics is just like a game. I’m not fighting anybody and I’m not expecting anybody to fight me. I have no issue with that. I think we are past that level now,” he said.
He challenged those predicting a vote split in Kano to wait for the election result before drawing conclusions.
“Let’s wait for the election and see whether votes are split in Kano or not,” he said.
Kwankwaso also acknowledged a history of working with Atiku, recalling that he served as the former vice president’s northern coordinator during the 2019 presidential election.
“There was an election in 2019 in Port Harcourt. He won the election. I was his coordinator for the north. We worked for him,” he said.
He traced his broader relationship with Atiku to the 2015 APC presidential primary in Lagos, where he placed second behind Muhammadu Buhari, with Atiku third.
By Okey Maduforo, Awka
The Anambra State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has expelled 30 members of the party for instituting legal actions against the party.
The affected members include some aspirants for the National Assembly, and their expulsion may disqualify them from participating in the party’s primary elections.
Disclosing this shortly after the meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) of the party, the State Publicity Secretary, Dr. Sir Valentine Iyiegbu, told reporters that the decision was in line with Section 21, Subsection 5 of the party’s constitution.
“The party discussed those who took the party to court, and many of them are contesting for the House of Representatives tickets of the party,” he said.
“The matter comes up tomorrow, and the SEC stated that what the party constitution stipulates would be followed, which is outright expulsion from the party under Article 21, Subsection 5.”
“The SEC actually ratified their expulsion because they did not exhaust all the internal avenues provided by the party to resolve their grievances,” he added.
Iyiegbu noted that the only reprieve available to the expelled members would be for them to withdraw their court cases.
“It is only when the matters are withdrawn from the court that the party can consider listening to them,” he said.
Speaking on the party’s primary elections, he explained:
“In the case of those contesting for the tickets of the Federal House of Representatives, all the eleven positions have aspirants, while for the Senate, the three positions are also being contested. The screening committees were here to perform their duties,” he noted.
The party also ratified the appointment of a five-man Primary Elections Committee headed by Sir Izuchukwu Okeke, the State Organising Secretary of the party.
By PETRUS OBI
Frontline aspirant for the Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency seat, Anayo Onwuegbu, has successfully completed the screening exercise conducted by the All Progressives Congress House of Representatives screening panel in Abuja ahead of the party primaries scheduled for Friday, May 15, 2026.
Speaking after the exercise, Onwuegbu expressed satisfaction with the screening process, describing it as a reflection of the party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and credible leadership selection ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The aspirant, who is seeking to represent Aninri/Awgu/Oji-River Federal Constituency under the platform of the APC, stated that he remains focused and prepared to continue to offer quality representation to the people of the constituency.
According to him, “The process once again highlights our party’s commitment to internal democracy, transparency, and the emergence of credible leadership as we prepare for the 2027 general elections.”
He reaffirmed his dedication to the development of the constituency, pledging to serve the people with commitment and purpose if elected.
The APC House of Representatives primaries are expected to hold nationwide on Friday as aspirants battle for the party’s tickets ahead of the 2027 elections.
-
News3 days ago“Go and Verify”: How Sunday Umeha Is Redefining Representation in Ezeagu/Udi
-
News4 days ago
Chief Sir Paul Chukwuma Lays His Beloved Sister to Rest
-
Politics4 days agoAnambra Communities Boil As Group Carpets Traditional Rulers Over Zoning
-
News4 days ago2027: Anambra ADC Intact Despite Obi, Kwankwaso Departure – Guber Candidate
-
Tech2 days agoHow Chatgpt Detector Tools Are Changing Content Verification
-
Politics1 day agoAPC House of Reps Screening: Onwuegbu Clears Exercise Ahead Of Primaries
-
Crime2 days agoFake Pastors Arrested in Anambra as Soludo Begins Crackdown
-
Education2 days agoEnugu: CIC Student Drowns While Trying To Retrieve Bucket From Water Reservoir