8th February, 2016
Okafor Ofiebor/Port Harcourt
Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, the Transportation Minister and former Governor of Rivers State, has taken a swipe at his successor, Governor Nyesom Wike, over the allegation that he stole $150 million between December 1 to 18, 2014 from state government coffers to fund All Progressives Congress, APC.
Amaechi in his reaction through his media team said “Sadly, on Sunday, February 7, 2016, Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers State in furtherance of his administration’s one-point agenda, yet again, continued his grossly irresponsible, repugnant and contemptuous, albeit, feckless mission of denigrating and disparaging the person and office of the immediate past governor of the state, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, who is now the minister of transportation.
Amaechi said that “The ‘story-story’ this time is about another phantom $150,000,000 that Amaechi purportedly stole from Rivers State government coffers and siphoned to his party, the All Progressives Congress(APC) within eighteen days, from December 1 to 18 of 2014. Sadly again, Wike picked a church, a sacred temple of God to tell his new imaginary tale, another bogus, fallacious concoction.”
According to Amaechi, “this new scurrilous fabrication by Governor Wike is in sync with the one-point agenda of the Wike administration, which is to throw as much mud as possible at former governor Amaechi, hoping that some may at least stick. All sorts of spurious stories about alleged corruption and stealing of state funds against the Amaechi administration have been bandied in the media with no attempt to substantiate or prove these distorted false claims that completely make nonsense of common sense.”
He stated that even when he challenged the “Wike administration and its agents to use any constitutionally available legal process or procedure to prove their jaundiced, deceitful allegations against him and his administration, they have rather elected to do their own corruption probe, trial and conviction in the media; and now, even inside our solemn places of worship (churches). How callous! Why would a government be so determined to desecrate and destroy every institution, all in the name of playing politics?”
Amaechi pointed out that “it continues to baffle us, like most right-thinking Nigerians that Governor Wike will stand in a church- a solemn place of worship- and carelessly, brusquely tell such a profound lie. He condescendingly descended to falsely and indecorously shout corruption against Amaechi, without providing a single shred of evidence to back his claims. How pathetic!
“Pray, Governor Wike, who collected the $150 million on behalf of APC? From which State Government account(s) was the $150 million taken from? How was the $150 million taken and given to APC? Was it by wired transfer from Rivers State government account(s) to APC account(s)? So many questions, if Wike had attempted to answer, would have made nonsense of his supercilious allegations.”
The former Governor who made Wike his Chief Of Staff in 2007, and also nominated him as Federal Minister, said Rivers people and Nigerians are indeed sick and tired of this old worn-out trick of Governor Wike to hoodwink and distract Rivers people from the real issues.
“Making a new spurious allegation of corruption against Amaechi every day will not make Rivers people forget that most of the beautiful, working institutions built by the Amaechi administration are now being allowed to rot away in spite of the billions of naira that had accrued to the state and the billions of naira borrowed by Wike. Rivers people want to know why weeds and grasses have taken over the beautiful schools built by Amaechi? Why the standard working health facilities Amaechi built and left behind are now looking desolate and abandoned?”
Amaechi said Rivers people are worried that crime and criminals are back and have taken over the state unchallenged by the Wike administration.
“No quantum of mudslinging and attempt to disparage the inspiring legacies of the Amaechi years in Rivers State would distract Rivers people from these issues,” he said.