2023: Senator speaks on announced candidate that will succeed President Buhari

crimechadmin April 5, 2022

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Against the backdrop of some influential members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) that they have the blessing of the highest hierarchy of the party to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023, Senator Magnus Abe has debunked such insinuation, saying that President Buhari has not anointed anybody that would succeed him.

Abe said that as a staunch member of the APC and one of the leaders of the party in Rivers State, “President Buhari has not anointed anybody to succeed him in 2023. I am an APC member and I am not aware that anybody has been mandated to go about telling people that he has been anointed to succeed the President. That is misinformation”.

In what was a direct indictment of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, Abe posited that those who are serious contenders for the presidency are going about meeting stakeholders and telling Nigerians what they can do if given the mandate to rule the country, while some people are relaxing believing that the President would anoint them in 2023.

He said some of those people who are clamouring to become President have never cared to bring a vote to the party, yet going about misinforming Nigerians that they have been anointed by the President to succeed Buhari.

Addressing his teeming supporters at the Freedom House (his campaign office) in Port Harcourt on Monday, Abe charged party faithful in the state to continue to mobilize people for the forthcoming elections irrespective of the fact that Chief Victor Giadom, Amaechi’s loyalist, had emerged as the South-South Vice national chairman of the APC in the March 26 national convention.

“The fact that Victor Giadom is the south-south Vice national chairman of the party does not mean that we should not go about mobilizing our people”, he said, adding that in the next three to four months, by the INEC’s timetable, everybody will know what will happen in Nigeria”.

On why his candidate failed at the convention, the former member of the board of the Nigerian national petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said the state leadership of the APC did not consult stakeholders in the state about the consensus candidature of Victor Giadom for the convention.

“Several people were not consulted for Victor (Giadom) to be the consensus candidate. Everybody in Nigeria knew that one of the places consensus would not work was Rivers state. We decided we will not withdraw. We also knew we would not win, but we decided we must contest”.

Earlier, the factional chairman of APC in Rivers state, Barr Golden Chioma re-emphasized that he remains the recognized state chairman of the party, adding that the national leadership of the party knows that the Rivers state chapter of APC is still “factionalized” despite the convention.

“The party knows that Rivers state APC is still factionalized. We believe that (Senator Abubakar) Adamu will do the needful so that we can start preparations to contest the governorship election in the state”, noting that what APC members in Rivers state want is a governorship candidate that is not an employee of any individual person, but “one that can contest an election and wins. Abe is that man with enough capacity to win election in Rivers state”.

Barr Chioma said the party in the state would work hard for the presidential ambition of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the governorship aspiration of Senator Magnus Abe.

For Barr Worgu Boms, former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice in the government of Rotimi Amaechi as Governor said though he lost the election of the south-south national vice chairmanship of the party to Giadom, “the end of this crisis will come when the minister of transportation succeeds Buhari and Victor (Giadom) succeeds (Governor Nyesom) Wike”.