A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State, Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has described the former minister of Transportation, Rotimi Cibuike Amaechi as the star minister in the immediate past executive council of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, whose performance, both as a minister and election campaign lead, were starling and unbeaten.
Eze said that the campaign of calumny against the former governor of Rivers State is a waste of time, adding that the anxiety and negative media campaigns targeted against the former Minister were being sponsored by the duo of the Rivers state governor, Chief Nyesom Wike and the immediate past senator representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District, Senator Magnus Abe who are in a ploy believed to force President Muhammadu Buhari’s hand against re-appointing Amaechi as minister.
Eze in his statement on Wednesday said the former Governor of Rivers state is several miles ahead of his traducers, whom he said had been wasting Rivers’ taxpayers’ money to hire hatchet men to malign and insult Amaechi through various media outlets.
He alleged that Governor Wike and Senator Abe have engaged the services of some media influencers to be issuing out press statements and appearing as guests on some national television stations and be buying advertorial pages in some national dailies, all requesting President Buhari not to renominate Hon. Amaechi into his cabinet.
He, however, described all the efforts as acts of witchcraft, diabolical, wicked, unjust and unacceptable, noting that Amaechi, by his patriotic zeal and commitment for a new Nigeria, merits to be reappointed into the yet-to-be constituted cabinet of President Muhammad Buhari.
“Besides the fact that Amaechi served as the Director General of the Buhari Presidential Campaigns, a role he had previously played in 2015 and happily delivered on both mandates as the President won his re-election in February, coupled with the revolution that he brought into the rail system in Nigeria, he has beaten his enemies to their game.
“He has performed creditably well in the transportation ministry; the former minister completed some ongoing railway projects like the Kaduna-Abuja road, the Abuja rail and Warri-Itakpe rail. The Lagos-Ibadan railway will be completed early next year and for continuity, which has been one of the hallmarks of President Buhari’s administration, Amaechi’s nomination is a foregone conclusion.
“Assuming all that Amaechi achieved on behalf of Nigeria and President Buhari do not guarantee his renomination, then the acceptance by majority of Nigerians that Amaechi was not only the best minister in the immediate past federal executive cabinet but the most outstanding among his colleagues, which they indicated in the various media surveys, will ensure his nomination.
“If merit and position of the majority of Nigerians will not earn Amaechi a renomination, then the spiritual angle to his political career will come to play. This is a man who always has a second chance in all his political career”.
Eze said that Amaechi is the only Nigerian who has become a two-time Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, two-time Governor of Rivers state, two-time Chairman of the Speakers Forum and Governors Forum of Nigeria, adding, “apart from all these spiritually induced appointments, he is the only African that has piloted a presidential campaign organisation two consecutive times and won on the two occasions.
“With all these, it is not in the character of Amaechi not to be renominated again to serve out his second term as a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, he said.
