PATIENCE JONATHANS LUST FOR POWER DESTROYED MY RELATIONSHIP WITH MR. PRESIDENT - Amaechi. By Ayobami Olapade .. thenews magazine A can of worms has been opened by the governor of Rivers state, Rotimi Amaechi, over the cause of his frosty relationship with President Goodluck Jonathan. In an interview with The NEWS magazine, the governor said that he started having issues with Jonathan over what he described as the insatiable quest for power by the wife of the President, Dame Patience Jonathan. “The first was the attempt by the wife of the president to control Rivers state government. I remember when female senators came to me after she met with them. She said to them: ‘I am the highest ranking officer from Rivers state and I wonder why the governor of Rivers does not accord me that respect.’” He said that his response to them was that “in law, I don’t see the office of the wife of the president being superior to that of governor… The resistance is what you are seeing.” He posited that all of that explains why she snatched the microphone from him in Okrika, which happens to be her hometown, and rebuked him publicly for wanting to buy off some buildings and demolish them in order to pave way for more space for extra curricular activities for a school. According to Amaechi, the first lady, whom he described as the “de facto president” wants to be regarded as a political ‘lord’ in Rivers state whom others would come cap in hand to, whenever they want a political position. “Basically, the only way you can survive is if you then wake up in the morning to say, ‘Good morning ma. My name is Rotimi Amaechi, governor of Rivers state. Do I greet this person or that person.’ It is about power and control. She appears to be somebody who loves power,” Amaechi declared. The governor also revealed that the president also had issues with his outspokenness over the scourge of corruption which was permeating through the ranks of public office holders in the country. The fact that he was exposing a lot of corrupt activities going on within government circles didn’t go down well with the President. Another cause of the dispute which Amaechi mentioned was the fact that the president and his wife failed to keep the promise which they made to him prior to the 2011 election that they would not trouble him again if he delivered Rivers state to Jonathan during the election. “Within the period, the president had called me and his wife and we sat together and made peace. There again, they promised that nobody would hurt me, nobody would do this or that. That is why this is a bit difficult because there is nothing new that they can tell me that they did not tell me in 2011 and they did not keep to their promise,” he said. Amaechi further revealed that attempts by his government to clamp down on activities of oil thieves in Rivers were scuttled by the president because of the dispute between them. This further resulted in the President taking about 41 oil wells from Rivers and handing them over to Abia and Bayelsa, the president’s state. Recounting what is obvious in Nigeria, he specifically lamented the level of corruption saying, “The amount of money being stolen is enough to run this economy. They set aside 455, 000 barrels per day for local refining. We don’t refine in Nigeria. Crude is refined overseas, brought back to Nigeria and then we pay subsidy on it.” Nigerians await the response of the Presidency to Amaechi’s latest “revelations.” Over to you Abati, Omokri, et al.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 04:56:07 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015