Hopes Of Peace In Rivers Crash As Amaechi HITS At Wike After ‘Famous’ Handshake

Just days after he and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State shook hands and agreed to let peace reign in the south-south state, Minister of Transport, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has fired shots at his former comrade, crashing growing hopes that peace would soon return to the region.

Speaking at stakeholders meeting on the London summit on anti-corruption and the Open Government Partnership (OGP), which was organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice on Thursday, Amaechi ridiculed Wike’s administration, accusing it of lying against him on several occasions.

Amaechi revealed that contrary to widespread report that his term was corrupt, Rivers State became the first to implement the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) act in Nigeria during his tenure while he also denied receiving over N3.1 trillion as alleged by his successor.

“The governor of Rivers State said I squandered N3 trillion. I did not receive up to N1.8 trillion as governor both from IGR and funds from federal allocation. . . So, how could I have squandered money I did not even receive in the first place? You can see the politics of lies and lies.

“We went to court against the Rivers State government on their allegation of corruption against me. . .

The Court of Appeal said, produce that document that found this man (Amaechi) guilty of those crimes and up till today he (Wike) has not produced it.

“…. even after I told him to go and learn the act of production from Young John the wicked producer….”

Amaechi believes that looters of public funds should be publicly disgraced in order to prevent them from running for public offices in the future.

“I believe in name and shame and an open government. What name and shame does is to prevent such people for vying for public office,” he said.

This stand is contrary to that of President Muhammadu Buhari, who said of names of discovered looters would not be publicized for security reasons.