The Rivers State government has declared that the Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi must account for the $308million that accrued from the same of state-owned gas turbine power stations towards the end of his tenure as governor of the state.
Okah said:
“The sale of the power stations and diversion of the proceeds to fund political activities of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was the reason why the Governor Amaechi government abandoned so many uncompleted projects and owed salaries and pensions to workers before he left office in 2015.
“Apart from the power assets which the former governor sold to Sahara Energy, the same company also bought the Olympia Hotel and other high value state assets under suspicious circumstances from the Governor Amaechi administration and the Justice Omereji Commission of Inquiry was asked to inquire
“The Justice Omereji Commission of Inquiry investigated the spurious sales and indicted the Minister of Transport and instead of refunding the money, the Minister rushed to court to set aside the findings of the Commission.
“He lost at the high court and at the Court of Appeal.
His appeal to the Supreme Court been abandoned because for over a year, he has failed to file a brief of argument. The reason for Tonye Dele Cole is now better explained
“Instead of explaining why he took such contagious economic steps against the State, the former governor and Minister of Transport is busy blackmailing the government of Rivers State and supporting the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to disobey existing court orders and harass the Government of Rivers State and her officials.
The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, during the presentation of a book by Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan has revealed what his monthly salary is “only N950,000” a month out of which he also pays his aides.
Former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) / Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Cardinal Onaiyekan, who presented a book titled, ‘Dignity in Service,’ authored by the late Dr. Matthew Mbu, a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, has said it is unpleasant how the older generation has refused to give the youths chance.
The Archbishop said that former leaders like the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Nnamdi Azikiwe, and Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, were young when they did great things for Nigeria.
He said it was this sort of orientation that caused the late Mbu to be appointed a minister at the age of 23.
Onaiyekan, however, wondered if the younger generation could be given the sort of opportunity that existed in the 1960s.
In his word,
“The point I want to make is this; today when you hear that a young boy was a minister, my mind always goes to those days too and I ask, how many people were old then? The people we now see as ancestors were all young people. I will like to find out the age of Tafawa Balewa and even Awolowo at that time.
“They were all relatively young and when Awolowo and Azikwe broke grounds then, they were young. I think this is the story we need to tell to our younger people but the question is, where is the space for our younger people when old people like me are still hanging around?
“We have to find a way of giving room to younger people to show what they can do also. Mbu has shown that young people can perform but we have also had experiences of young people who have not performed.”
The cleric, however, stated that being young did not always imply that a person would be competent.
“So at the end of the day, maybe it is not a matter of the age but a matter of your own mind, your intention, your love for doing the right thing especially concern for others, politics and service to the people in the name of God. If we start to take these things seriously then probably it would not matter whether we declare to seek re-election at 79 or whether we don’t,” Onaiyekan said.
In his remarks, Amaechi, who was the chairman of the occasion, said it was not true that only past leaders were honest.
While extolling the virtues of the late Mbu, Amaechi who was governor of Rivers State between 2007 and 2014, said he would continue to promote transparency.
To prove his claim, the minister revealed that he earned “only N950,000” a month out of which he also paid his staff.
He said,
“A minister earns only N950, 000 a month. Out of this money, N350, 000 is for accommodation so there is no more money given to you. The remaining N600, 000 includes payment for your staff, personal assistants and all that.”
Amaechi said President Muhammadu Buhari’s government had helped to stop the culture of waste such that private citizens no longer throw lavish parties.
The minister added,
“Nigerians like going to parties. That is one benefit of this government. We now assess our wealth and value money. Before, once you get money from the illegal means, we hold parties. There are very few parties these days because there is no more money to hold such parties.
“There are no ‘owambe’ anymore because there is very little money to hold ‘owambe.’ The reason is that the ‘owambe’ money used to come from the government and there is no money in the government to do such.”
The federal government has said that laying of tracks for standard gauge railway line from Lagos to Ibadan would commence in April this year. This remark was made by Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, yesterday at Adunbu in Ogun State after an on the spot assessment of the ongoing paving of right of way for laying of tracks.
Apart from moving the Abeokuta Railway station to a virgin land in order to reduce demolition of structures along the railway corridors, he disclosed that a committee headed by the chairman, Nigerian Railway Corporation, Engr. Unman Abubakar , has been set up to give an update on the removal of all obstacles on the Lagos to Ibadan standard gauge project.
According to him, some of the obstacles identified obstacles were oil and gas pipelines, water pipelines, Apapa/Ijora bridge, power lines, sewage, railway station and staff quarters in Lagos amongst others.
Amaechi stated further that discussions were ongoing with Lagos State Water Corporation, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Federal Ministry Power and Housing with a view to finding out how to relocate their respective utilities so as to pave right of way for the project.
He commended China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) for accelerating the pace of work and expressed hope that the December dateline set for the commissioning would come to fruition.
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