Abe says he has no plan to dump APC

* Claims to be preferred choice for Rivers governorship race Senator Magnus Abe (Rivers Southeast ) yesterday dismissed speculations that he had left the All Progressives Congress (APC). He said not only does he remain an APC member; he is also the preferred choice ahead of the 2019 governorship election in Rivers State. Abe, a governorship aspirant on APC platform, and his faction of the party lost out in the recently concluded nomination of candidates for next year’s elections. An online report yesterday said he had dumped the APC. However, his spokesman, Parry Benson, denied the report, and branded it a pedestrian move to derail the conversation about the preferred choice of the Senator as the governorship candidate of the APC in Rivers State. Benson said, “We know that such calculated misinformation in the public domain is coming from the usual quarters to confuse Senator Abe’s supporters, who have remained firm, resolute and insisted on justice, equity, and fair play in Rivers APC.” The spokesperson also urged the senator’s teeming supporters and other lovers of democracy to ignore the fake news Abe was quoted by Benson as saying: “I am the frontline choice of Rivers APC for 2019 election. That is why so much efforts, resources and energy have been expended on a futile mission to obliterate that reality. “The sponsored campaign of hate and calumny is part of the efforts and like every pack of lies; it will collapse in the fullness of time. The report that I, Senator Magnus Abe, have dumped the APC for the PDP is another of such endless and wicked campaigns against me. I remain a member of the APC. I remain committed to the party (APC) and to President Muhammadu Buhari. “I have been in politics long enough to know that a smear campaign is one of the tools you deploy when your case is weak. So, from the intensity of the smear campaign, discerning political watchers will know that no real case can be made against me. “Just as I have said severally, let me re-emphasise that I bought form for governor, on the platform of APC in Rivers State and I am running for the office of governor.” However, the APC has already forwarded the name of oil tycoon, Tonye Cole, to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as its Rivers State governorship candidate.]]>