The National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN) has called for the resignation of the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, as a Minister in the Federal Executive Council.
The youths who issued a 48-hour ultimatum urged President Muhammadu Buhari to sack Amaechi if he refused to resign from office, following the attack on the Abuja-Kaduna bound train by terrorists.
In a communiqué issued after its emergency meeting on Monday in Abuja, the NYCN, through its President, Solomon Adodo, alleged that Amaechi danced on the graves of those who lost their lives in the incident.
It said the minister celebrated the pains of the abducted and wounded by declaring his presidential ambition on a day he was to meet Nigerian youths on the implication of the March 28 attack on an Abuja-Kaduna train.
The communiqué said, “Consequently, to demonstrate that there is a modicum of sanity in this country and the minutest respect for the lives of citizens, the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, should resign within the next 48 hours or President Muhammadu Buhari should sack him as a mark of respect for the dead, who he deliberately or unwittingly desecrated.
“We hereby pass a vote of confidence on the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces’ determination to rein in insecurity and in a similar vein frown at the attempts by the Minister of Transportation to discredit the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.”
The youth group said it was shocked “to see the Honourable Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, in a total political jamboree, jumping around in the name of declaring for 2023 Presidency rather than being in a sober mood of seeking solutions to the pains of the grieving Nigerians and particularly the affected families.”
“It is on the heels of this that we have decided to convene this wider consultation with leaders of frontline civil society organisations and take an assertive stand.
“While the NYCN has nothing against Rt. Hon. Amaechi’s aspiration, his actions are unconscionable, condemnable, reprehensible, irresponsible, distasteful and disgraceful in the face of our national reality and mood. It is tantamount to dancing on the graves of the victims of the train attack, and celebrating the pains of the abducted and the wounded.
“The National Executive Committee of the NYCN is equally saddened that Hon. Amaechi, who is supposed to take responsibility and lead the way in ameliorating the plight of the victims, has rather thrown caution to the winds and shown no strand of care. We are frustrated that, while we are spending our resources and risking the lives of the youth leaders in trying to seek solutions to our national challenges, politicians in the class of Hon. Amaechi, who have failed Nigeria in the first place, are working to force the country into a fatal amnesia by trivialising a matter as serious as the Abuja-Kaduna rail track bombing.”
The NYCN further asked that Amaechi apologises to Nigerians, adding that “even Minister Amaechi sought to blackmail the President and the Federal Executive Council when he claimed before global cameras that the FEC was responsible for allowing the attack to happen because they rejected his proposal, which was found to be lacking in integrity as far as procurement procedures are concerned.
“Due to Hon. Amaechi’s callousness and arrogance, he has not bothered to visit or interface with the families of the bereaved. He only went to the scene of the attack to announce himself as the ‘nice guy’ who was a Nostradamus that was not listened to.
“Even the issue of the actual number of passengers, and consequently the actual number of victims which should be of a grave concern to Amaechi is still shrouded in suffocating controversies. The discrepancy in records of the passengers on board the ill-fated train demonstrates that there is huge corruption ongoing in the Ministry of Transportation under Minister Amaechi’s watch.
“Millions of Naira that should accrue to the government on a daily basis is being diverted to private coffers. Minister Amaechi, for all his Mr nice guy posturing, has been supervising a railway contract without security components which should be compulsory, not just because of these kinds of terror attacks, but also things like perimeter fencing to ward off stray animals.”
The youths said it was very disappointing that a leader of Amaechi’s standing and experience could be so insensitive to Nigerians.
It said it had always resisted the temptation to view him as a careless, arrogant and unfeeling leader, as many of his critics had argued, adding that “since the only important thing in this country to him is his aspiration for Presidency, he should, therefore, vacate the Ministry of Transportation before worse disasters hit us.”
