Membership of the newly-appointed Rivers State All Progressives Congress (APC) Caretaker Committee appears to have been shared between loyalists of former Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi, and supporters of the Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike.
Mr Amaechi is officially a member of the APC while Mr Wike is officially a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Mr Wike, who unsuccessfully bidded for his party’s presidential ticket last year, is believed to have some influence on the APC in the state by virtue of his position as a minister in the APC-led federal government.
The NWC of APC, on Wednesday, dissolved the crisis-ridden leadership of the party, and appointed a seven-member caretaker committee to run its affairs in the state for six months.
The committee members are Tony Okocha (Chairman), Eric Nwibani (Secretary), Chibuike Ikenga and Stephen Abolo.
Others are Silvester Vidin, Senibo Dan-Jumbo and Darling Amadi.
Mr Okocha is a known supporter of Mr Wike, even though they belong to different political parties.
His appointment as the committee chairman has, therefore, fuelled speculations that the ruling party is preparing grounds for the defection of the FCT minister to the APC. Mr Okocha, a former Chief of Staff to Mr Amaechi, has been critical of his former boss lately.
Besides, the new caretaker committee chair, in the past couple of months, has been championing the campaign for the defection of Mr Wike from the PDP to the APC. In an interview in July, Mr Okocha declared that his group had resolved to formally invite Mr Wike to join the APC and take over the structure of the party.
“The group had met after the election and we asked ourselves what the position was. In that meeting, it was not part of our agenda. We had a two-point agenda.
“One, was a briefing as to what has happened? The second one was, what is the way forward? In the cause of that meeting, a motion was moved from the floor saying that we should invite Governor Wike to come over to APC and take over the leadership of APC,” he said.
There are speculations that now that he has been given the structure of the APC in Rivers State with the mandate to midwife the birth of a new state executive, he would ensure the defection of Mr Wike to the party.
Other affiliations
On the other hand, the appointment of Eric Nwibani, a loyalist of Mr Amaechi, as the secretary of the caretaker committee is seen by observers as some sort of a balance.
Mr Nwibani, a House of Representatives candidate in the last election, belongs to the Chibuike Amaechi (CRA) political bloc in the state.
Another loyalist of Mr Amaechi is Chibuike Ikenga, a former caretaker chairman of Ikwerre Local Government Area where the former transport minister hails from.
