Beke writes APC national chair, demands recognition

A fresh political row is brewing in Rivers State following the announcement of August 30 for the local council elections by the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC).

Several reactions have trailed the timetable. The Rivers State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO) has threatened to take all necessary legal and democratic steps to halt the planned local council polls.

While the CLO rejected the announced timetable for the polls by RSIEC, led by Dr Michael Ekpai Odey, other political observers alleged that the election is an outlet to justify large spending by the Sole Administrator, Vice Admiral Ibok Ete-Ibas.

On Monday, July 28, 2025, Odey unveiled a revised election timetable, fixing the elections for Saturday, August 30, 2025. This timetable replaces an earlier one issued by the RISIEC under Hon. Justice Adolphus Enebeli, which had scheduled the elections for August 9, 2025.

In the meantime, the Tony Okocha-led All Progressives Congress (APC) has insisted that there is no factional APC in the State, claiming to be the only authentic Chairman of the party, expressing the party’s readiness for the election. But the Emeka Bekee-led faction has described the election and APC primaries on Saturday as a ‘joke’.

The spokesman of the Okocha-led APC, Chibuike Ikenga, said the Bekee faction had already left the party long ago and doesn’t exist anymore, while the spokesman of the Bekee-led group, Darlington Nwauju, queried why the Okocha team is still in three different Courts of Appeal challenging the judgment that recognised Bekee as the APC state Chairman.

Recall that APC’s national executives, in December 2024, after its state party’s congress that produced Okocha and other excos, recognised Okocha as the state party’s chairman.

But Nwauju blushed that away, saying they are deceiving the public with lies. He further alleged that a majority of the members in the present RSIEC are card-carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), stating that such people have no moral ground to conduct elections for all political parties in the State.

MEANWHILE, Beke has urged the party’s new National Chairman, Prof. Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, to recognise him as the authentic state chairman and suspend the local council primaries scheduled by the rival Tony Okocha-led faction.

Beke appealed in a formal petition submitted yesterday at the APC National Secretariat in Abuja, accompanied by his faction’s Secretary, Sam Etetegwung.

Speaking with journalists after submitting the petition, Beke cited a judgment of the Rivers State High Court, which, he said, affirmed his leadership of the APC in the state.

Quoting from the court’s decision, Beke said: “In a well-considered judgment, the High Court of Rivers State, Port Harcourt Division, presided over by Justice S. H. Aprioku, set aside the purported dissolution of our executive and declared that the Emeka Beke-led State Executive Committee remains the valid and subsisting leadership of the APC in Rivers State until October 2025.”

He maintained that the judgment has not been overturned by any appellate court and, therefore, remains legally binding. Beke also welcomed the recent decision of the APC national leadership to extend the tenure of all elected state executive committees to December 2025, insisting that this further validates his position as the legitimate state chairman.

He, therefore, called on the new National Chairman to halt the planned local council primaries being organised by the Okocha-led faction and allow his committee to take full charge of the process in Rivers State.