By Ini Morgan
Those who know Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi so well, he is the incumbent Minister of Transportation, should please take this kind advice and a solemn warning to him: oga Amaechi, you have enjoyed so many good rides on the back of fortune to political prominence in your State, Rivers; and in Nigeria. At a point you thought you were able to stand without any support, now you have personally removed the unstable props that were hold you in place, saving your face.
This is the political story of the man Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi: Peter Otunaya Odili, a medical doctored and former governor of Rivers State, whom he served as a Personal Assistant in his then small private hospital along Aba Expressway in Port Harcourt, Pamo Clinics, railed road him into the politics of River State by recommending his appointment as a Special Assistant to Governor Rufus Ada George in the ill fated Third Republic. He again paid for the court victory that got him into the Rivers State House of Assembly, ending as the Speaker of the Assembly, and finally, as Odili is known for, he “donated” and propelled him to head the Forum of Speakers of Houses of Assembly in Nigeria, after Olorunimbe Mamora. Dr Peter Odili, again ensured that he was the sole candidate at the PDP governorship primaries at the Isaac Ada Boro Park in late 2006, a leap that made had m Governor via the Supreme Court.
Again, against all odds known in our legal history, Ezebuwon Nyesom Wike, the LGA Chairman he helped with a second term mandate in 2003, in appreciation of the contributions of Amaechi thus, put his life on the line, posted Amaechi into exile, and fought the battle of wits that made Amaechi governor of Rivers State in 2007 through the courts, the second time. It is true that Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has only won one election, the one Wike won for him as the Director General of his governorship campaigns: his job as Buhari’s DG was helped by his understudying Wike’s campaign strategies. A very fortunate man indeed. So Governor Wike railed road him into Government House Port Harcourt, spending obscenely to get that mandate from the Supreme Court.
At this point, I beg to submit that it was Governor Wike who again, as Director General of Chibuike Amaechi Campaign Organization, gave him a moon slide victory in the Gubernatorial elections in 2011, demystifying the late Tonye Harry, the then doyen of Kalabari politics, in the process. I remember the address of Nyesom Wike in Harry’s g me town, Degema, during the campaigns, and I knew all was not well with the then Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Chibuike Amaechi’s sojourn in the APC was a trip of sympathy facilitated by 5 of his governor-colleagues from the North with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and President Buhari trailing them, and his abandonment of governance in Rivers State for his political survival at that time is one remarkable evil he forced on Rivers people. I am a very big victim of that his selfishness. We thank God that he is the Minister of Transportation today and I think God has favored his household, sacrificing the destinies of about 60 Rivers people and a few non indigenes and their families, including me, and we still feel “used and dumped” by his administration.
This is just on one project he completed. I coordinated the construction of all the infrastructures and ancillary provisions upon which the Rivers State Scrap to Wealth Project was completed and still awaiting commissioning, if it is not yet moribund. That project cost Rivers State more that N3.5bn, much of which went to complete waste due to derelict government officials and desire for illogical compensations. I still have records available. I know many more Rivers people returned home frustrated.
The RivMetal Recycling Nigeria Limited, like the monorail project remains locked up and abandonment to weather and rust, though completed and ready for shredding and export of scraps. He used all the money for the commissioning of that completed project to get the position of Director Genwral of Buhari campaigns in 2015 and subsequently, a ministerial appointment. I supervised that project and I dare say we were ready for commissioning, and we just needed N300m for take off and his suspension from the PDP was effected and he abandoned governance losing focus. The Scrap to Wealth project is the only one of 3 projects completed by the Rivers State Ministry of Environment, in all 8 years of Amaechi’s administration and that is owed to my bold and tough administration of that project.
I am back in my village because Wike won’t live to see Amaechi’s honour in Rivers State. Amaechi was quick to commercialize that project and in my opinion, Governor Wike thinks that was criminal. It is those who, against graft and adverse interests made sure that project comes alive, who are now suffering severe lack and needs for livelihood, in the face of the plant lying waste near Bori. Yet things are moving on well for Chibuike Amaechi and his household. God dey! I just pray that Governor Wike will return the Hilux vehicle I used as project supervisor and with which I should be disengaged from the service of government, otherwise God will judge this injustice in the face of his car spreeing gifts to all manner of people and I now carry “banga” on my head because Wike seized my well maintained Hilux and allowed Dr Mpi, an Ikwere man like him to take it home on retiring from service.
I applied my personal wealth to keep, service, maintained, fuel and drove that vehicle on my own from June 2009 to June 2015: is that fair? I remember how Mrs Grace Charlse Granville fought to prevent my being given the vehicle, insinuating that I will run with it into Cameron because I am from Akwa Ibom State. I complete ed that project for Rivers State and left empty handed, leaving with Dr A Amah, a supposed Christian minister insulting me when I insisted on taking my last allowance, just N100,000. These are people who were nursed and bred in wickedness. I have a very bad recollection of Rivers men and women. I see them as very selfish, wicked and violent – I have turned my back against them and whatever they think they have. They are a bunch of his ungrateful people. – yes! Rivers people.
Chibuike Amaechi is a very arrogant, selfish and stingy man. He was made minister in the present administration and he conferred on himself the status of a “lion”. He fought almost everyone from the South South to remain “the lion”. Yet he took on a wrong man this time in Adams Aliyu Oshiomole, a clearly better man than him who has a history of hard work as pedigree, and Amaechi’s nemesis is sure to come soon because he has lost fortune to ride on this time. The man who lost Rivers State to the opposition even with all the powers of incumbency in his pocket is incomparable to the man who took Edo State from the position of the opposition. The “lion” is self acclaimed but in reality, he is a political midget who strives on luck and chance.
I wrote an article asking how Chibuike Amaechi emerged Director General of “Buhari Campaign Organization”. He walked in to see Mr President and asked for permission to start a political organization. The presidential campaign organization of President Buhari will be formally inaugurated when Mr President picks his running mate. Nigeria operates a joint ticket. What Amaechi heads is one of the associations building up to support Mr President’s ambition. It is a crafty way of commencing the waste of resources so that at the end, should Mr President wins, he will show how much he has spent, and with that get another appointment. I doubt if he will be lucky this time around.
Nigerians are wiser now, and we will not allow Chibuike Amaechi to use the resources of the Federal Ministry of Transportation and resources meant for the coastal railway to help himself with pretending to support President Buhari. He either status as Director General of the Buhari Campaign Organization and resign from his ministerial position or he does the vice. We will not take the Buhari administration seriously if he allows his minister who is clearly a political deficit to explore his nativity to fester his politucal opportunism. The duties of the Minister of Transportation is so enormous that I imagine how Amaechi hopes to run it with his PWT project. He should resign from Buhari cabinet forthwith.
Let us review my position: Peter Odili made him Special Assistant to Ada George and Speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly effortlessly. Nyesom Wike made him governor of Rivers State two times and his governors colleagues helped him to get to where he is today. I am not sure that Amaechi is as politically tested as Nyesom Wike as long as Rivers State is concern. How can he claim to be “the lion of the Niger Delta when only Edo State is APC in the regiin and that State is in the grips of Adams Oshiomole? Amaechinis such a loud mouth and very naive. Wike is one politician who gets whatever he sets before him. Amaechi lost his hold on Rivers State and her politics when he recommended Wike to Jonathan and insisted that he be made a minister, instead of sending him packing from Government House Port Harcourt and returning him home. Even at home, Amaechi would have found Wike tough to deal with in Port Harcourt. How can Amaechi sell Buhari to Nigerians when he has not been able to sell him to the Rivers people he governed for 8 years?
It is pay back time for Amaechi as it is pertinent that Magnus Ngei Abe would be favoured to handled the structure of the APC in Rivers State. I would want to see Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, a man I supported against my oga Kingsley Ogundu Chinda (unfortunately, the initiator and mover of President Buhari’s impeachment motion in the House of Representatives), an erstwhile commissioner in Rivers Star and a two term member of the House of Reps. I did so because Amaechi was an incumbent governor and I was serving him: I now found my support to be a very big mistake. But how could I have abandoned a project under my command because he who appointed me wanted me to frustrate it? It was about my name and I am happy I completed it, no matter the cost.
Tell CRA to get his bag ready to return to the political dust of Rivers State. We will not accept his holding onto his ministerial portfolio while festering his political nest and cleverly opposing Mr President in his bid to return to the presidency. President Buhari will win the 2019 elections without Chibuike Amaechi. Magnus can make more serious impact in Rivers State, in my own opinion, than Chibuike Amaechi. Let Nigerians insist on President Buhari stopping the protracted bloodshed in Rivers State and stop encouraging Amaechi to play his “do or die” politics. He is childish and unseasoned for decent democratic participation.
Ini Akpan Morgan writes from Uyo via
