Rivers AC & The Frustrated Pensioners

When a man's profile is soaring, a lot of people will be in support of him and a lot of people, too, will be envying him. That was what played recently in the Rivers State chapter of the Action Congress (RSAC), when a set of elders whose credibility is in doubt in the party, went berserk and reported to the media that Prince Tonye Princewill who is known as well as the leader of the party in the state, have been suspended. Contrary to that, one Goodnews Ndunake, the State Acting Youth Leader of the party made a refutal on the radio asking the general public to discountenance themselves from the said elders' “impeachment” of Tonye Princewill. He regarded the statement as lacking in integrity and locus-standi.

In another vein, the President of the Voice of Niger Delta (VON), who is a stalwart of the party in the state, Mr. Ibimie Odimabo, in a press briefing made available to journalists in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, condemned the action of the elders, describing it as unwanted. “AC in Rivers State has no squabble, except for the nefarious activities of the said elders who majority in the party do not know,” Odimabo said. “They are trying to throw our great and formidable party into the mud, but they will not succeed. The elders are not even known in their Wards, let alone in the RSAC. So, I am surprise how somebody who is not known in his Ward would come to expel a staunch member of the party, like Princewill. The likes of Barr. Osima Ginah, Hon. Commissioner for Urban Development in Rivers State, will be alas of the action taken by the elders. For those who are yet to know Princewill, he is the man who made the RSAC to be what it is today and have been rising to the occasion in making sure that the PDP in the state doesn't relegate the party to the background in our state”.

With the RSAC Chairman, Mr. Suage Alex Badey, Odimabo said that the likes of Badey and Princewill in the party make him remember his days in the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP). Hear him: “Seeing Princewill and Badey in RSAC make it a home of one parentage like I once experienced in the SDP. In those days, we lived like the Siamese twins. Seeing the duo in our party, the elders lacked the clout for the ignorance they have exhibited for the public to laugh at. The elders were they not the same people who were frequenting Princewill's house at Eleme Street, Port Harcourt for their daily bread, which Princewill never shrugged back? Judging by their recent action against Princewill, I think they are a bunch of frustrated pensioners. During the X-mass of 2009, Princewill gave them huge sum of money to take the needs of their wards. I am saying that no one expelled Princewill, except on the imagination of the goons called elders”.

Buttressing his points, Odimabo added: “I think the elders got it right by their exhibition by making the true members of the RSAC to know who their members are, and the elders are not members, but Princewill is a member of the RSAC. RSAC didn't expel Princewill. And if there was anything like that, then it was done by kangaroo men who claim to be members of the RSAC, which they are not. Why didn't they conduct the meeting in the RSAC secretariat? Instead, they conducted the meeting at a hotel in Aggrey road Port Harcourt. They also went and “exhumed” one Mmuen Kpagane, who once was the chairman of the RSAC, to be what? But I ask, was this not Kpagane who was arrested by the national body of AC at the 12 December 2009 national convention? I was with Suage Badey at the convention, and I saw Princewill, too. I want the media to understand that the elders, because of Princewill's benevolence, the later even pay them salary they never merited. I want to assure the general public that the expulsion of Princewill as the elders want us believe, only exists in their imagination.”

Odimegwu Onwumere is the Founder of Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), and also a media Consultant based in Rivers State. +2348032552855. [email protected]