The All Progressives Congress (APC) membership registration exercise took off nationwide today but not without controversy in the politically charged Rivers State, where the party accused the Grassroot Development Initiative (GDI), the political machinery of Supervising Minister for Education, Barrister Nyesom Wike, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of disrupting the exercise.

APC in a statement issued this evening in Port Harcourt accused GDI and “some PDP stakeholders” of plotting “to unleash mayhem and disrupt APC’s membership registration exercise which started today in 4,442 political Units across the State.”

The statement signed by Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, spokesman of the state party chairman, said that “this evil plot which was hatched during a meeting held in the house of a GDI chieftain in Obio Akpor LGA, Chief Timothy Nsirim, where GDI and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders were directed to ensure that our registration centres are attacked within days of this exercise and were assured that the police had been fully briefed and would not intervene.”

Continuing, the statement said: “When we first got intelligence reports on the planned attacks, we initially did not attach much importance to it, but we were proved wrong when some of our registration officers and innocent citizens of Rivers State who turned up to be registered by APC as the exercise took off today were attacked by thugs hired by PDP and GDI. To our shock, our Registration Units in Tombia, old Bakana all in Kalabari axis of the State and Woji Ward 6 in Obio-Akpor LGA the Local Government Area of Chief Nyesom Wike were all attacked. Our Degema LGA Supervisory Committee Chairman for the Registration exercise and former Chairman Rivers State Civil Service Commission, Mr. Ben Orugbani, escaped death when his house was shattered with bullets in the old Bakana just for accepting to ensure that this type of politics of odium and violence is stopped in Rivers State.

“In this regard, APC Rivers is calling on the good people of the state not to be intimidated as they have the right to register and freely associate with any political party of their choice – APC in this case. While we direct our registration officers to carry on with the exercise without fear, we call on the police to protect our registration officers and the innocent citizens who wish to register with our great party from the hands of these hoodlums who think that politics is all about violence and intimidation. We at the same time wish to warn GDI and PDP to have a rethink and avoid pushing us to the wall as nobody or group has the monopoly of violence.

“Meanwhile, the APC State Interim Chairman, Dr. Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, as the true leader that he is, refused to be intimidated and went out to monitor the registration exercise in Port Harcourt, Obio-Akpor, Eleme and Ikwerre LGAs and expressed happiness with the large turnout of people for the exercise. ‘With what I saw today, PDP is truly dead in Rivers State,’ Dr. Ikanya said and assured the people that ‘the revolution started by Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in Rivers State will surely be sustained even after he leaves office in 2015 by the APC Administration.’ ”

•Photo shows Rivers APC Interim Chairman, Ikanya.