The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi has said that he earns “only N950,000” a month out of which he also paid his aides.
Amaechi said this at the presentation of a book titled, ‘Dignity in Service,’ authored by the late Dr. Matthew Mbu, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Also speaking at the event, the Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, says it is worrisome that the older generation is refusing to leave the scene for the younger generation. Onaiyekan, who is a former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria,
The cleric said the post-independence leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, were young when they did great things for Nigeria.
He said it was this sort of orientation that caused the late Mbu to be appointed a minister at the age of 23.
Onaiyekan, however, wondered if the younger generation could be given the sort of opportunity that existed in the 1960s.
The cleric said, “The point I want to make is this; today when you hear that a young boy was a minister, my mind always goes to those days too and I ask, how many people were old then? The people we now see as ancestors were all young people. I will like to find out the age of Tafawa Balewa and even Awolowo at that time.
“They were all relatively young and when Awolowo and Azikwe broke grounds then, they were young. I think this is the story we need to tell to our younger people but the question is, where is the space for our younger people when old people like me are still hanging around?
“We have to find a way of giving room to younger people to show what they can do also. Mbu has shown that young people can perform but we have also had experiences of young people who have not performed.”
