Attempted Attack on Rivers APC Secretariat Allegedly Targeting Tinubu, Says Okocha

The Rivers state caretaker committee chairman of All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Tony Okocha has alleged that the attack on the party’s state secretariat on Aba/ Port Harcourt expressway by hoodlums was aimed at discrediting President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Senate President, Dr. Godswill Akpabio.

Okocha alleged that the hoodlums were heavily paid by some agents of the state government to carry out the nefarious operation as a way of expressing their anger towards the President who has not supported the state government during the current political crisis.

“I am aware and we were briefed how meetings were held in midnight in this state to make Rivers state the epicenter of protest for obvious reason that they felt that they need to get at Mr President who does not seem to be supporting them.

“They have also planned to humiliate the Senate President. They displayed placards that the Senate President must resign. The third reason is that, they want to undermine our leader, Nyesom Wike who has been against the protest in Abuja.

“Our concern is that why did the Governor mobilize and include APC in his list to be destroyed? Imagine that we were in the office to work, we would have been gone by now. The people went to the popular oil mill market with megaphone to announce that nobody should come out on Thursday and Friday that it would be more heinous”.

During a press briefing in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, Okocha told journalists that he suspected the vandalism of the party’s Secretariat was sponsored by vested interests who are fearful of the APC’s growing influence in the state.

“Today the issue in point is the vandalization of the APC Secretariat situated at Port Harcourt Aba Express Road in Port Harcourt by hoodlums who were sponsored by a source we have identified. We are not scared to name the source because the situation has become very political. Of course, why is it that it is only APC that was isolated for destruction?

“But the millions of those attacks will not stop us in APC from speaking for the people of Rivers State. It will not stop us from being opposed to a government that is clueless. It can’t stop us. Is like when the Rivers State Assembly Complex was pulled down, it did not stop the House of Assembly from sitting.

“Those who attacked our secretariat left us with a note that they were coming back again and I don’t know whether their coming back again will be today or some other time because it was about 5.00pm on Monday that they vandalized the Secretariat complex”.

He urged the Rivers State Police Command to increase security in and around the party Secretariat to deter future attacks. The APC chairman also appealed to the protesters to cease their actions, emphasizing that many of President Tinubu’s accomplishments have been significantly under-acknowledged. Furthermore, he highlighted that the federal government’s policies and initiatives are forward-thinking and aimed at improving Nigeria.