Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has again taken on his arch political foe, Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi.
Wike is rubbing the worrisome spate of insecurity in Nigeria on the face of his Ikwerre kinsman. In 2011, Wike was Amaechi’s campaign manager when the minister was seeking re-election as Rivers governor.
As an incumbent governor, Wike defeated Amaechi in the 2015 general election, and retained the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the dominant party in the state.
Ahead of the election year, Amaechi had defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) hoping that he will easily deliver the state to his new party.
He, however, claimed that Wike was able to defeat him because of the ”federal might”.
Surprisingly, in the 2019 elections, Wike braved the massive deployment of security forces to Rivers to assist the minister and ‘retired’ him again from political relevance in the state.
Governor Wike was however speaking this time as he took on Amaechi who attributed insecurity in the big oil and gas state to unemployment.
For Wike, it is disingenuous for Amaechi, to attribute insecurity in Rivers to unemployment.
“Is unemployment fueling insecurity in Kaduna, Plateau , Borno, Yobe, Ondo, Ebonyi, Imo, Niger states governed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)?”
He argued that if the minister, who is the immediate past governor of the state has any modicum of sincerity, he will attest to the fact that security is the sole responsibility of the Federal Government.
“Is Amaechi trying to indict his boss, President Muhammad Buhari, who is the Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and who is constitutionally saddle with the responsibility to provide security for Nigerians.
“It is a well known fact that Amaechi is the one who appoints every Commissioner of Police that has been posted to Rivers since 2015. So, if there is any security failure, he is to be blamed.”
Governor Wike describes Amaechi’s outburst on the current imposition of curfew in the state, following the recent attacks on police formations, as ”a misguided utterance” which according to him, ”is rather unfortunate.
”Perhaps, the minister is happy that members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are killing innocent policemen, who were protecting lives and property.
”Is Amaechi happy that the weapons of these slain security personnel were carted away by the hoodlums? Amaechi, from all indication has lost focus and is now frustrated.”
The governor declared that his administration has offered scholarship to over 500 Rivers students to study medicine and other related courses at the PAMO University.
On the allegation of the minister that Wike is acquiring property in the state, the combative governor said it better to acquire property in Nigeria than to do so in Ghana.
Wike said Amaechi’s jubilation over the defection of his former Commissioner of Urban and Rural Planning, Reason Onya, who was indicted by a judicial Commission of inquiry, is a pointer that he is politically irrelevant in Rivers.
The governor further urged the minister to return to Abuja and resolve the financial malfeasance rocking federal agencies under his watch, and desist from destroying the homes of others.
