Okafor Ofiebor/ Port Harcourt
Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike has said he made his predecessor and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi governor in 2007
Wike who stated this during an interview with the BBC Pidgin on Friday while reacting to the recent media altercation with his former boss (Amaechi) who said that he would not descend to the level of Wike because Wike was his employee as his Chief of Staff.
Wike dismissed the claim as untrue because besides God, he was instrumental to Amaechi being Governor of Rivers State in 2007 which Amaechi himself said on video clips in a Church Service..
“I couldn’t have been his employee, but I still have the video clips where he told a Church congregation that beside God, Wike made it possible for me to become Governor.
“He asked me to be the Commissioner for Finance, I said no. I chose to be Chief of Staff. I couldn’t have been Amaechi’s employee when he was the one who made him governor in 2007″.
He said: “Amaechi and I were in the same party and in politics, everybody has his own ambition. He had his ambition to be governor, and at the time, I didn’t. So, we fought and supported him to be governor. Now he’s in APC, and you don’t expect me as a PDP person to support what he does.
“I was the one God used to make Amaechi governor. I will even give you a tape from what he said in the church; that after God, I’m next. But when he was talking the other day, saying I was his staff, his employee, I said no problem.
“We all sat to make you governor, and I was the one who championed it. How do you call someone who made you governor an employee? When he became governor, he asked me; how are we going to run this government, and he offered me to be commissioner of finance, but I said no, let me be in the chief of staff office.
“That time I made him governor, I had the power to choose. People know in this state. When we were fighting for him to become Governor was he in the state? Was not a refugee in Ghana?”
“With his APC, did they even score 25 per cent here during the 2015 and 2019 elections? His staff stopped him from winning Rivers for his Presidential candidate? I stopped him from winning the governorship election for his candidate? Not even one National Assembly member No even a seat in state. His party APC was not on the ballot.”
“Well, we have passed that. He said over his dead body will I be governor, now I am looking for that dead body. I have been governor for eight years now. In 2015 when I won, they said PDP was in power, but I also won again in 2019 when APC was in power.”
“See the monorail, just 1.5 kilometres, they said they spent N54 billion. I am not saying anybody is corrupt, but just see all these monies we have mentioned,” he said.