A former National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has reacted to the party’s decision to withdraw its National Legal Adviser, Henry Bello, from the matter before the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.

According to Eze, the withdrawal of the lawyer is inconsequential and has no adverse effect on the case of the governorship candidate in the state, Tonye Cole and other candidates of the party.

There were news around the country two days ago that Bello had withdrawn from the case and that his action signals a pitfall for the APC and its candidates at the tribunal.

There are claims that the ongoing romance between the President-elect, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and outgoing Rivers Governor, Nyesom Wike, must have had something to do with withdrawal.

But Eze, in a statement in Port Harcourt on Thursday, alleged that the lawyer had struck a deal with Wike in an underhand attempt to frustrate the APC cases at the tribunal, particularly the governorship.

Eze said, “A stealth peek into the surreptitious affair of Bello and Wike revealed a strong and deliberate attempt to hamper the steady progress recorded by the party and its candidates at the tribunal in a bid to subvert the will of justice.”

And that revelation informed the decision by the national leadership of the party to relieve Mr. Henry Bello, the National Legal Adviser of the party, of his official roles in the matters of the Rivers APC at the tribunal in the interest of justice.

He said the party’s leadership should not stop at relieving Bello of his roles, but go a step further to deal with him as a saboteur in line with the constitution of the APC.