Rotimi Amaechi...The 'Alariwo' Of Rivers State

In this part of the world where cultural orientation plays vital roles in human growth, it is assumed that the older that one gets, the more reserved one is supposed to be in disposition. Ideally and realistically, taciturnity overshadows verbosity as we advance in age. Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State is 49 years old; a year short of clocking the golden age. Hence, he doesn’t fall into the category of the adolescent with high tendency for and inclination towards many words.

Funnily, the governor has continued to show that he has only grown in number of years and not in maturity; worse still, when one considers the fact he

occupies an exalted position of an executive governor of one of Nigeria’s most vibrant and civilised states, a privilege which naturally confers on him the imperative to discharge his duty with refinement and class.

Amaechi loves to talk but when he does, he always skirts moral and ethical pavements, leaving many to wonder how lowly he has sunk since he became Governor. Over the past two years especially, Amaechi has become more notorious than popular for some of his unguarded and uncivilised tirades against the Presidency and everybody that crosses his path. These unguarded statements have pitched him against many and cast him in the light of a serial victim of misinterpretation. Not surprisingly, Alariwo of Africa must feel like conceding his title to him. To buttress his new status as an uncouth 'statesman', some of his quotes would suffice.

“Because government is the biggest enterprise in the country, that’s why when the President enters, everybody catches cold. So that’s why I keep getting advised ‘Amaechi don’t talk again oo…’” He continues, “I went to Turkey with the President and that’s the last trip I went with him. They don’t like taking me to travel with them…” On another occasion, “They’ve threatened me with the EFCC, they’ve hunted me, there’s nothing they’ve not threatened me with… If I was not a governor with immunity, they would have taken me down.” This was at the outset of his quarrel with President Goodluck Jonathan. Of course, his face-off with the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, is very well documented and some of the reasons he has adduced for their face off are evergreen sound bites in Nigeria’s political history.

He recorded another low point when he made wild allegations that should have landed the First Lady in the EFFC nets if Nigeria were to be a working country. Read him, “The quarrel between me and the wife of the President is because she said I should bring your money, Rivers people money and share with her. I refused to give them money in Abuja because if I do that, I won’t be able to carry out any development project or finish the road from Rumuolumeni to Rumuepirikom.”

Speaking with a group of graduates recently, the governor said, “Ask yourselves this question that I have always asked Rivers people. What have we (Rivers people) done to President Jonathan that he has refused to bring any project to Rivers State. We had to fight them before they could do the East-West road. I had to abuse the federal government and they abused me back before they could do the work you now see on that road.”

The governor also recently accused President Jonathan of appropriating Rivers State’s oil well from Soku to his native Bayelsa State while 41 oil wells in Etche Local Council of the state, Amaechi said, were given to Abia State. “Is the President or his wife from Abia State? Why do they want us to suffer? If President Jonathan comes back to power in 2015, Rivers State economy will crash.”

He did not stop there. “Since September this year, the federal government has not been able to pay any state from the federal allocation. They said they don’t have money. This is the first time that our president is emerging as the 6th richest person in Africa.” In his usual manner of speaking out of context, the former Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly blamed the failure of the Rumuolumeni Road construction project on his former ally turned adversary, the immediate past Minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike, whom he described as incompetent.

He said the state government awarded N1.5 billion for the construction of internal roads in Rumulumeni and had already given the indigenous contractor, who is also from the area, N700 million. We said Rivers money for Rivers people because they don’t have capital. This man took the contract and gave it to a man who now wants to be governor. This man that is being backed by Mrs. Jonathan gave N250 million to the indigenous contractor and disappeared with N450 million without constructing the road. And this is the man who wants to be governor, with billboards screaming the concept of ‘New Vision’. What kind of vision is that for a thief? They have been thieves for too long so it cannot be new vision. The only thing that is new is that he has industrialized stealing. The former minister of state for education in a radio interview said, he ‘shedded tears’. Everyone knows there’s no word like that.”

It is unfortunate to come to the conclusion that Governor Amaechi has perfected the art of official unruliness as he epitomises and personifies loquacity and self-serving arrogance bordering on his unfettered access, obviously, to too much oil money than his orientation, education and exposure can contain. As 2015 general elections draw near, may his chi bestow on his charm and luck to remain relevant in the nation’s socio-political sphere, lest he gets hounded by his present unsubstantiated rantings against both his real and imaginary political enemies. - culled from thecapital.ng

*Ouch!....Oh well Amaechi still remains my #BOO anyday,anytime.