Dom Zimegapi
The ongoing rift between the Minister of Transportation and senator representing Rivers East Senator District and now All Progressives Congress–Rivers APC Governorship Hopeful Senator Magnus Ngei Abe took a different turn over the weekend leading to the postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections. In a Press Conference organised by Senator Magnus Abe in Port Harcourt he lambasted the Minister and Leader of APC in Rivers state as stated below
“My attention has been drawn to an interview granted by the minister of transportation, Rt. Hon Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi. In the interview widely publicized by the daily post and several online media houses. In the said interview the minister was said to have among issues raised therein described me as a “betrayer and an ingrate.”
Nigerians are aware that Mr. Amaechi has been calling me names for the past two years and in keeping with my personal values and upbringing, I have refrained from joining issues with him in the public domain. However, it has become imperative that I set the records straight on the issues raised by the minister so that Nigerians will know the truth.
First, the minister said the justice of the case today demands
that the Riverine part of the state should produce the governor.
Let me again place on record that it was the same Amaechi who called the entire leadership of the Ogoni nation to several meetings to promise the Ogoni people the same Governorship for the same the same reason. All spectrum of the Ogoni including the supreme council of Ogoni traditional rulers, Mosop, Kagote, the church leaders council, the Academia are all aware of the Minister’s commitment. He has told the Ogoni people on several occasions that they were the poorest and most marginalised group in Rivers state.
He said the reason they have never gotten the governorship
position is because they have never succeeded in making enough
noise.
He held closed door meetings with Ogoni leaders and made these
promises more than four times during his tenure.
When he changed his mind on what justice in Rivers state demands,
he simply moved on to hold the same kind of meeting and make the same promise
to the Riverine people.
The minister asked if I am popular why did I go to court? My response is that I learnt from the case of _*Rotimi Amaechi Vs INEC*_ that when the rich and powerful, those who have absolute control of the party machinery, are after you it is only the courts that can help you. So I simply followed in Amaechi’s footsteps. If that meant he was not popular, then that is what it still means today.
Mr. Amaechi said I fell ill when he picked Dakuku over me in 2015 I should answer honestly that I did not fall ill. Indeed Mr. Amaechi himself will recollect that Rivers youths almost set the Government house on fire, and that I came out to address them and went on air to appeal for calm. He can also remember that I arranged a meeting of Ogoni leaders who met with him in the aftermath of that decision. No doctor attended to me.
But he will also remember that when Prof. Osinbajo was announced as vice presidential candidate of the APC, he went into shock and a doctor had to be brought in to treat him. He was placed on drip all night to stabilise him. That was why he assumed that I would have also require medication. We all react differently to shock.
I am glad that Amaechi can still remember that myself and Wike attended meetings with him in an effort to support him to be governor. Whatever transpired between him and Dr Odili, I am glad Dr. Odili is still alive and he is in a better position than myself to discuss Mr. Amaechi’s loyalty.
But let me remind Mr. Amaechi that he is not to me what Dr. Odili was to him. I have never been on Mr. Amaechi’s personal staff. I have never lived in his boys quarters. Our political partnership started in the house of Assembly to which I sponsored myself and Dr. Odili sponsored him. So I do not owe him the kind of loyalty that he owes Dr. Odili. How well he discharged that loyalty in the face of power is between him, Dr. Odili and God.
Lastly, let me repeat once again, that I was elected minority
leader of the Rivers State house of Assembly by members of the minority caucus
of the house. I was appointed commissioner of information by Dr. Peter
Odili. Dr Odili himself called me after my appointment and told me in the
presence of two witnesses ( the then deputy Governor and the SSG) that my
appointment was one he made by himself out of conviction that I would do well
and he was not influenced by anyone in giving me that appointment.
Yes, the Minister as Governor appointed me as SSG and supported me
to go to the senate. I thank him for the privilege, but I did not lobby for the
job, and served with total commitment, and discharged my responsibilities
faithfully and to the best of my ability.
I never went to the Minister sobbing for NDDC Job, and he knows that talk of me and the Governorship predates and postdates NDDC.
Most importantly none of this was done on the precondition that I
would not attempt to be governor.
I really must appeal to the minister to take it easy. All is
too transient in life to habour so much pettiness and hatred.
Nigeria is a democracy and I have a constitutional right to aspire
to a position for which to the best of my knowledge he is not in
contention.
The APC is not a personal estate of anyone, it is a political party and I am playing by the rules. He should try to understand the rules so we can play together.”
READ ALSO: Rivers PDP Is A Nest Of Liars -Dakuku
The Transportation Minister had at the APC Presidential Rally made it public that Senator Abe in 2014 when he lost Governorship nomination of APC was hospitalised over been heartbroken as he Senator Abe was not favoured. Amaechi also told his supporters that he had wanted the governorship position to be drafted to The Riverine communities of the state and that the present legal tussle is not over until it is over meaning that his supporters should not give up hope as he accused Senator Abe and the incumbent PDP Governor Nyesom Wike of truncating the chances of APC in participating in the 2019 General elections in Rivers State.