It is rather unfortunate that since inordinate ambition and rebellion chased embattled Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State out of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he has never ceased to attack the policies and programmes of the federal government, President Goodluck Jonathan, the ruling PDP and its leadership at all levels.
Governor Amaechi sees each forum as an opportunity to castigate the President and his transformation agenda. He does not appreciate the improved network of the nation’s roads, the railways, the airports, and the agricultural sector. The war lord is yet to appreciate Nigerian’s position as the chairman of United Nations Security Council, the largest economy in Africa. Job creation efforts, improved power generation and supply, centenary celebration, National conference and others too many to catalogue, do not matter to him. What matters to him is that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan is not performing, and should be voted out.
At a media briefing toward the end of last year, he accused the President of stopping the gas project in Rivers State in preference to the completion of the one in Bayelsa, as well as refusal to cite any project in Rivers, explaining further that the FGN had refused to re-reimburse him the money he used to construct federal roads in the state. He further stated that the East/West road was deliberately abandoned by the federal government. He accused the President of ceding the Soku oil wells in Rivers to Bayelsa, and other oil wells in the state to Akwa Ibom and Abia States among other allegations.
It is on record that on Good Friday, Governor Amaechi told some chiefs from Ogu/Bolo, who paid him a courtesy visit, that they should not allow another Ikwerre man, referring to the Supervising Minister of Education, Barr Ezebunwo Nyesom Wike, to succeed him. His only reason was that Chief Wike is an Ikwerre man, and by so saying he had jettisoned performance, credibility and merit on the altar of ethnicity.
Governor Amaech has been campaigning against the re-election of President Jonathan, and that was the actual reason he fled PDP, for he knew he would not succeed in that effort. In the month of September 2013, Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduagham, raised his voice in support of President Jonathan, and wondered how any sane persons from South – South would not support the President in 2015. Governor Amaechi used the occasion of a programme organized by Rotary International District 1940 for young future leaders at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt to reply Uduagham.
Recently, precisely on Workers’ Day in Port Harcourt, he rather attacked the organized labour unions – Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, Trade Union Congress, TUC and the Students Union. He said, “Typical of the current leadership of NLC and TUC in Nigeria, they know the problems, they know the solutions, but they do not want to offer those solutions”. Inciting them further, he noted, “There has never been any successful democracy in Nigeria without the contributions of NLC, remember the role of NLC and TUC during the Abacha struggle.”
Reviewing the speech of the chairman which alleged appropriation of $8 billion or $48.9 billion, he incited that, “If they knew the jobs such amount could create, or the number of hospitals and schools it could build, all of them would have been on the streets on demonstration”. He maintained that when he was a students’ union leader, no police could arrest any students’ union leader and the school all over the country would not close down.
Going further, he narrated that, from 1983 to 1987 when he was a students’ union president, nobody could arrest any students’ union leader. “You could not steal that kind of money that is being stolen in Nigeria today without all Universities going on demonstration and all schools all over the country will be closed down, and then he could not do that without NLC coming out to the streets, but today, some of you labour leaders are junketing and enjoying with the politicians, and so the poor masses are suffering, because they have nobody to speak for them. They are voiceless and there is no leader to lead the voiceless. They are hungry and there is nobody to address their hunger,” he emphasized.
He accused the federal government of impunity and using the police against Nigerians, the security men against Nigerians. The war lord further alleged that the nation is not doing anything about the abduction of 200 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State.
Governor Amaechi published that people are kidnapped everyday in Rivers, and that the state government is helpless and cannot do anything, because security is in the hands of the federal government. Thank God the President in his media chat has answered all the questions about the security. He incited that the reason for kidnapping in Nigeria is social protests. “People are hungry, so if they kidnap, they will get paid. The governor noted that the people are daily victims of kidnap of not only those who carry them away and take money, but of those of them in government.
“Nigeria will not change until the labour unions, students union and the ordinary masses are able to take their own destinies in their own hands”, he further said.
Continuing also he said that, the reason an Ikwerre governor wants to succeed another Ikwerre governor is because the masses do not vote, or at best their votes do not count. He made bold to say that PDP rigs elections. Was he telling Rivers people how he emerged?
According to him, “Where the President of Nigeria will come from is irrelevant, performance in office is a deciding factor”. He stated that he considered Nigeria’s national interest far and above any regional interest, in other words, where anybody hails from is immaterial to him.
Governor Amaechi needs to tell Rivers people the fate of the state legislature and judiciary. If his predecessor and former governor, Dr. Peter Odili had led the state as such, would he have been a governor that he is today? Was the state judiciary in Dr. Odili’s era as it is today? Who is the father of impunity in Nigeria? Why is it that the state legislature and judiciary are in coma today? Why is it that Hon. Justice Peter NC Agumagu, who labored to be a reference point in the judiciary, is on suspension? Why did he suspend the elected chairman of Obio/Akpor LGA? Even after court ruling, did he obey? Why is he also afraid of Wike’s emergence as a governor? Is there anything both of them know that the state and its citizen do not know?
President Jonathan has performed creditably, and the fact is clear even to the opposition. Nigerians are aware of the giant strides and are calling on him to declare his intention for a second term. Would he also attack the Oba of Benin for asking the President to declare, because Nigeria wants him to continue with his good works?
The governor is advised to concern himself more with the problem of fulfilling the social contract and also solve the internal problems in the All Progressives Congress, APC, especially as it concerns Legacy parties, than attacking the President and PDP at large.
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