[Daily] Vindication of Rotimi Amaechi Written by Mr. Kennedy Friday Rated *******
Folks, its been a very long time i ve been here, six months i think and i must say wow, I have missed this space.
ok, so today, i came across this article by my brother and friend, Kennedy Friday, I spent nearly 45 minutes reading forth and back, trying to digest the contents and reminiscing the political activities between '12 and '15. My verdict is that For Governor of Rivers State, the Rt. Hon. Rotimi Amaechi is being daily vindicated. i promise its going to be a revealing, exciting,and educative read.
Here is this wonderful article by Kennedy Friday who writes from Port Harcourt.
Recently, Chief Barr Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers State, announced that Rivers State Government had secured the commitment of critical stakeholders in its bid to carry out repairs on parts of the East-West Road from Eleme Junction to the Onne Sea Ports in Rivers State. This development surprised many people and eventually led to endless questions by the citizens. Day after day, vindication comes the way of former Governor of Rivers State, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. You see, it is not life that matters, but the courage you bring to it, and the ability to stay in the lane of your convictions, no matter how tough situations may be
Between June and July 2012, there was a tanker accident along the East-West Road near Ahoada in Rivers State. It resulted in a fire, lives were lost, and Amaechi as governor of Rivers State promptly visited the scene to condole with the victims
Appalled by the deplorably denigrating condition of the East-West Road, a critical road infrastructure that passes through the Niger Delta region, and concerned about the haphazard, lacklustre and lukewarm handling of the road by the Federal Government even as lives of our people were summarily terminated in avoidable but incessant carnage on the pot-hole ridden road, Chibuike Amaechi had respectfully implored the Federal Government to allow Niger Delta Governors to pull resources together (money that the Federal Government would refund later) to complete the road in the interest of our people.
It is important to note that prior to Amaechi’s request, a practice precedent had already been set in this regard nationwide. Several states had fixed federal roads and were exhaustively refunded. Indeed, then President Jonathan himself, about the same time the Amaechi plea was made, granted another state permission to fix a federal road with every assurance that they will be refunded. At no time was this practice ever remotely viewed as an affront to the president. Under late President Yaradua, Amaechi publicly made the same offer in respect of the Bodo /Bonny Road in Rivers State.
However, it took about seven months for Elder GodsdayOrubebe, the then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to digest the public offer Amaechi made to the Federal Government and after curiously convincing himself that it was a show of disrespect to former President Jonathan, activated what is now known as the “first Orubebe outburst” --the second being his infamous exchange with Prof Jega at the International Conference Center in Abuja during the announcement of results of the Presidential election.
Thus, between 18th and 19th of January, 2013, seven months after the former Governor of Rivers State made his offer, Orubebe allegedly ignited a blistering media attack and the campaign of calumny against Amaechi in almost all the national dailies, an evil venture in which he allegedly sunk hundreds of millions of naira. The aim of the smear campaign was to portray Amaechi as a disrespectful spoilt brat who was after the seat of President Jonathan, his kinsman. Egregious, bizarre and toxic political conjectures and permutations over 2015 started flying left right and center all over the print and electronic media. Lamido/Amaechi ticket. Atiku/Amaechi ticket. Kwankwaso/Amaechi. There was no story too obscene to be concocted against Amaechi. All these came allegedly from the dubious imagination of Elder Orubebe and his co-conspirators. The smear campaign which was cleverly crafted caught fire in the entire region: Amaechi, a Niger Delta, was entering into servitude to the Hausa/Fulani overlords to take the Presidency back to the north in exchange for a pot of porridge in form of Vice Presidential ticket. The propaganda was too powerful to ignore.
Nyesom Wike, then Minister of State for Education, a politician whose frozen ambition to succeed his Ikwere brother as governor of Rivers State was beginning to find melting outlets mischievously latched onto the imbroglio as a special passport to the first family by disguising himself as a loyal “son” who was ready to fight to the kill anybody from Rivers State disrespecting the President and his wife. It didn’t matter that the person in question was his former boss who recommended him to be a minister. Orubebe, happy to draft the rugged Wike into the fight, readily provided all the ammunition required. A special bond started developing between Nyesom Wike and Dame Patience Faka Jonathan, who earlier had a widely reported face-off with Amaechi when she, like an Amazon with so much magisterial swagger, subdued Amaechi before her kinsmen in Okrika over the former governor’s plan to dismantle a slum, compensate the land owners and in its place, build a befitting model school in which students from Okrika will be armed with modern tools to navigate the competitive storm of the 21st century.
Wike fought that fight, the heights of which were the suspension of Amaechi from the PDP; the infamous haphazardly orchestrated impeachment move bungled by the mathematics abracadabra of 5 is greater than 27 spearheaded by Evans Bibi, the “speaker” elected by “honourable members in the gallery” of the infamous, “Patience Jonathan my jesus christ on earth blasphemy”; the Mbu Jospeph Mbu saga that led the police force to block the then governor of Rivers State from entering into Government House in Port Harcourt, with Wike always giving counter orders to the police as de facto governor of the state.
Before you could say, Jack, a scintillating array of prominent personalities and politicians from across the South-South had been drafted into the smear plot against Amaechi. Godswill Akpabio, then Governor of oil-rich Akwa Ibom State, E.K Clark, Seriake Dickson, Governor of Bayelsa State - you name them. They were all united to teach Amaechi a lesson.
Disturbed by that development, one of the most sagacious contemporary politicians in Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe, in one rare moment of prophetic exactitude, had warned President Goodluck to be careful with the raging inferno which the Orubebes were stoking in his backyard. Writing a prescient piece in THISDAY Newspaper, Abe had relayed the admonition he said one of his pastor friends had always given him: to be careful of “unbrotherly brothers and unfriendly friends”.
If former President Jonathan read the article, he didn’t allow the wisdom contained therein to instruct him. I will now quote Magnus Abe in extenso to buttress the timeliness of that admonition. Writing about the Orubebe outburst, the former senator said: “I have served as a commissioner for information and I know for a fact, that if the information managers on the spot, (which would have been those of the governor and the minister) so desired, the president’s name could have been kept out, and Orubebe’s attack or response to Amaechi would have been no less valid.”
It is important to note that prior to Amaechi’s request, a practice precedent had already been set in this regard nationwide. Several states had fixed federal roads and were exhaustively refunded. Indeed, then President Jonathan himself, about the same time the Amaechi plea was made, granted another state permission to fix a federal road with every assurance that they will be refunded. At no time was this practice ever remotely viewed as an affront to the president. Under late President Yaradua, Amaechi publicly made the same offer in respect of the Bodo /Bonny Road in Rivers State.
However, it took about seven months for Elder GodsdayOrubebe, the then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs to digest the public offer Amaechi made to the Federal Government and after curiously convincing himself that it was a show of disrespect to former President Jonathan, activated what is now known as the “first Orubebe outburst” --the second being his infamous exchange with Prof Jega at the International Conference Center in Abuja during the announcement of results of the Presidential election.
Thus, between 18th and 19th of January, 2013, seven months after the former Governor of Rivers State made his offer, Orubebe allegedly ignited a blistering media attack and the campaign of calumny against Amaechi in almost all the national dailies, an evil venture in which he allegedly sunk hundreds of millions of naira. The aim of the smear campaign was to portray Amaechi as a disrespectful spoilt brat who was after the seat of President Jonathan, his kinsman. Egregious, bizarre and toxic political conjectures and permutations over 2015 started flying left right and center all over the print and electronic media. Lamido/Amaechi ticket. Atiku/Amaechi ticket. Kwankwaso/Amaechi. There was no story too obscene to be concocted against Amaechi. All these came allegedly from the dubious imagination of Elder Orubebe and his co-conspirators. The smear campaign which was cleverly crafted caught fire in the entire region: Amaechi, a Niger Delta, was entering into servitude to the Hausa/Fulani overlords to take the Presidency back to the north in exchange for a pot of porridge in form of Vice Presidential ticket. The propaganda was too powerful to ignore.
Nyesom Wike, then Minister of State for Education, a politician whose frozen ambition to succeed his Ikwere brother as governor of Rivers State was beginning to find melting outlets mischievously latched onto the imbroglio as a special passport to the first family by disguising himself as a loyal “son” who was ready to fight to the kill anybody from Rivers State disrespecting the President and his wife. It didn’t matter that the person in question was his former boss who recommended him to be a minister. Orubebe, happy to draft the rugged Wike into the fight, readily provided all the ammunition required. A special bond started developing between Nyesom Wike and Dame Patience Faka Jonathan, who earlier had a widely reported face-off with Amaechi when she, like an Amazon with so much magisterial swagger, subdued Amaechi before her kinsmen in Okrika over the former governor’s plan to dismantle a slum, compensate the land owners and in its place, build a befitting model school in which students from Okrika will be armed with modern tools to navigate the competitive storm of the 21st century.
Wike fought that fight, the heights of which were the suspension of Amaechi from the PDP; the infamous haphazardly orchestrated impeachment move bungled by the mathematics abracadabra of 5 is greater than 27 spearheaded by Evans Bibi, the “speaker” elected by “honourable members in the gallery” of the infamous, “Patience Jonathan my jesus christ on earth blasphemy”; the Mbu Jospeph Mbu saga that led the police force to block the then governor of Rivers State from entering into Government House in Port Harcourt, with Wike always giving counter orders to the police as de facto governor of the state.
Before you could say, Jack, a scintillating array of prominent personalities and politicians from across the South-South had been drafted into the smear plot against Amaechi. Godswill Akpabio, then Governor of oil-rich Akwa Ibom State, E.K Clark, Seriake Dickson, Governor of Bayelsa State - you name them. They were all united to teach Amaechi a lesson.
Disturbed by that development, one of the most sagacious contemporary politicians in Rivers State, Senator Magnus Abe, in one rare moment of prophetic exactitude, had warned President Goodluck to be careful with the raging inferno which the Orubebes were stoking in his backyard. Writing a prescient piece in THISDAY Newspaper, Abe had relayed the admonition he said one of his pastor friends had always given him: to be careful of “unbrotherly brothers and unfriendly friends”.
If former President Jonathan read the article, he didn’t allow the wisdom contained therein to instruct him. I will now quote Magnus Abe in extenso to buttress the timeliness of that admonition. Writing about the Orubebe outburst, the former senator said: “I have served as a commissioner for information and I know for a fact, that if the information managers on the spot, (which would have been those of the governor and the minister) so desired, the president’s name could have been kept out, and Orubebe’s attack or response to Amaechi would have been no less valid.”
“By bringing in the president’s name Orubebe may have gained some power points by identifying himself as the minister who takes on the President’s perceived enemies, but it is difficult to see how the President himself benefited from the exchange. In any case, the attack on Amaechi will not fix the East-West Road, and Niger Deltans will always credit the governor for drawing attention to the slow pace of work on the road. It is important that we remember that Amaechi’s initial comment did not get more than fleeting attention at the time.”
“Since then more of such articles and stories against Amaechi have flowed freely in the media, with all sorts of frivolous litigations, plots against anything perceived to be related or connected to the governor. This includes a court case sponsored by a serving minister in the Jonathan administration against the Rivers state PDP exco.”
“My late father, who in his lifetime managed to combine two seemingly impossible professions as a priest and a politician, advised me to inherit his friends, but make my own enemies. Mr. President should be careful lest “unfriendly friends” and “unbrotherly brothers” bequeath their personal enemies to him. He should accept their friends but be careful to make his own enemies.”
“The basis for the persecution of Amaechi as an enemy of President Jonathan is that he allegedly wants to be Vice President. I am sure that anybody who knows the history of Nigeria, understands that those who want to be Vice President do not behave like Governor Amaechi. They do not freely voice their opinion on sensitive issues because they know that potential presidential candidates are unlikely to pick a Vice President who has his own views on national issues. A governor with an eye on the vice presidency is more likely to ingratiate himself with the President, sponsor media attacks on potential opponents, declare an early interest in the Senate as a red herring in a bid to remove themselves from the line of fire while accumulating dubious awards.”
“Having invested so many resources to reveal to the world that Jonathan has a serious challenge in his home base, those “unbrotherly brothers” must of necessity settle the problem they have created. The President must now turn to the South-South to ‘stabilize’ the zone by neutralizing the Amaechi threat. This project will take precedence in time and resources and divert the President’s attention from pressing national issues.”
“Herein lies the danger of this ungodly enterprise, even if it succeeds the real benefits for Jonathan will be minimal, and his opponents will benefit more politically. No matter how it ends, the true beneficiaries will be the carpetbaggers, and Buccaneers around the President, who actually have nothing at stake.”
“In presenting themselves as solving a big problem for the president they guarantee their relevance in the Jonathan presidency regardless of the outcome; if the venture succeeds they pick the booty from Rivers State as legitimate spoils of a war. If it fails they lose nothing, but they would have handed the President a real problem in his backyard that he neither needs nor deserves”.
Magnus Abe ended his article on a prophetic note when he wrote this: “Let us watch out, the unbrotherly brothers, and unfriendly friends in the South-South may end up being the real problem of President Jonathan.”
Of course, Amaechi, unduly persecuted and suspended from the PDP, pulled out with seven PDP Governors to form the nPDP, a move that would later dovetail into the formation of the APC, the amalgam that engineered the unprecedented democratic “coup” that sent President Jonathan and the PDP packing from Aso Rock Villa straight to Otueke and enthroned President Muhammadu Buhari, with Amaechi one of the notable commanding generals of the bloodless common sense revolution.
“Since then more of such articles and stories against Amaechi have flowed freely in the media, with all sorts of frivolous litigations, plots against anything perceived to be related or connected to the governor. This includes a court case sponsored by a serving minister in the Jonathan administration against the Rivers state PDP exco.”
“My late father, who in his lifetime managed to combine two seemingly impossible professions as a priest and a politician, advised me to inherit his friends, but make my own enemies. Mr. President should be careful lest “unfriendly friends” and “unbrotherly brothers” bequeath their personal enemies to him. He should accept their friends but be careful to make his own enemies.”
“The basis for the persecution of Amaechi as an enemy of President Jonathan is that he allegedly wants to be Vice President. I am sure that anybody who knows the history of Nigeria, understands that those who want to be Vice President do not behave like Governor Amaechi. They do not freely voice their opinion on sensitive issues because they know that potential presidential candidates are unlikely to pick a Vice President who has his own views on national issues. A governor with an eye on the vice presidency is more likely to ingratiate himself with the President, sponsor media attacks on potential opponents, declare an early interest in the Senate as a red herring in a bid to remove themselves from the line of fire while accumulating dubious awards.”
“Having invested so many resources to reveal to the world that Jonathan has a serious challenge in his home base, those “unbrotherly brothers” must of necessity settle the problem they have created. The President must now turn to the South-South to ‘stabilize’ the zone by neutralizing the Amaechi threat. This project will take precedence in time and resources and divert the President’s attention from pressing national issues.”
“Herein lies the danger of this ungodly enterprise, even if it succeeds the real benefits for Jonathan will be minimal, and his opponents will benefit more politically. No matter how it ends, the true beneficiaries will be the carpetbaggers, and Buccaneers around the President, who actually have nothing at stake.”
“In presenting themselves as solving a big problem for the president they guarantee their relevance in the Jonathan presidency regardless of the outcome; if the venture succeeds they pick the booty from Rivers State as legitimate spoils of a war. If it fails they lose nothing, but they would have handed the President a real problem in his backyard that he neither needs nor deserves”.
Magnus Abe ended his article on a prophetic note when he wrote this: “Let us watch out, the unbrotherly brothers, and unfriendly friends in the South-South may end up being the real problem of President Jonathan.”
Of course, Amaechi, unduly persecuted and suspended from the PDP, pulled out with seven PDP Governors to form the nPDP, a move that would later dovetail into the formation of the APC, the amalgam that engineered the unprecedented democratic “coup” that sent President Jonathan and the PDP packing from Aso Rock Villa straight to Otueke and enthroned President Muhammadu Buhari, with Amaechi one of the notable commanding generals of the bloodless common sense revolution.
More than three years later, we are back to base. Nyesom Wike, the same person who, in concert with Godsday Orubebeand his cast of conspirators lampooned Amaechi, accusing him of disrespecting President Jonathan for daring to ask the Federal Government to allow Niger Delta governors to contribute resources to complete the East-West Road--an action which exposed the soft underbelly of the South-South to political attack--is today enlisting the commitment of critical stakeholders to partner with Rivers State Government to repair that same East-West Road from Eleme Junction leading to Onne Port. That is the crime for which Amaechi was crucified.
It is important for young Niger Deltans to take note of developing events in the region so that when the history of this era will be penned, there will not be any doubt as to who and who were the real Judases and traitors who played politics with our development. In days to come, I am sure more vindication will come the way of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
–– Kennedy Friday, a Public Affairs Analyst and Secretary of The Legacy Group writes from Port Harcourt. kenshowgreat@gmail.com
It is important for young Niger Deltans to take note of developing events in the region so that when the history of this era will be penned, there will not be any doubt as to who and who were the real Judases and traitors who played politics with our development. In days to come, I am sure more vindication will come the way of Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
–– Kennedy Friday, a Public Affairs Analyst and Secretary of The Legacy Group writes from Port Harcourt. kenshowgreat@gmail.com
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