The immediate past Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has reacted to allegation leveled against him by his successor, Nyesom Wike, that he stole $150,000,000 from the state coffers to finance his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a statement he personally signed, Amaechi, who is now the Minister of Transportation described the allegation as irresponsible.
The statement reads in full:
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.
The ‘story-story’ this time is about another phantom $150,000,000(One Hundred and Fifty Million Dollars) 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.
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 makes nonsense of common sense. Even, when Amaechi challenged the Wike administration and its agents to use any constitutionally available legal process or procedure to prove their jaundice, 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?
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 $150million on behalf of APC? From which State Government account(s) was the $150million taken from? How was the $150million 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.
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 been 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? Rivers people are concerned and worried that crime and criminals are back and have taken over. 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.
RT. HON. CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI MEDIA OFFICE
February 8, 2016
Abuja
