Where is the limit of political ambition? Rivers State has been in the news in recent times for the wrong reasons. The state which has enjoyed relative peace in the last four years was suddenly invaded with an oppressive and vicious culture of political violence driven by one man’s ambition.
The clear abuse of apparatus of the Nigerian state to torment and compel the electorate, and offials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to do contrary to the expressed will of the people at the ballot box, is not only criminal but, is highly condemnable.
This culture of do-or-die politics in Rivers State weaves around the inordinate ambition of Honourable Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi to become the emperor and lord of the manor.
It is an amazement that Right Honourable Rotimi Amaechi who should have every reason to be grateful to the people of Rivers state would become the terror tormenting their very peaceful existence, all in the name of seeking to control power.
Driven into a frenzy by this ambition, former Governor Amaechi wants to determine who becomes anything and everything in Rivers State. He wants to control power and dispense it from his kingdom. Unlike himself who was freely given an opportunity to become someone in life, Amaechi would want everyone in Rivers to crawl on their fours to him, just to receive crumbs dropping from his table.
Himself a creation of the political large-heartedness of former Rivers State Governor, Dr Peter Odili, Amaechi has every reason to be grateful to God and the people of Rivers. But, he has despised in all forms his very little humble beginning.
The story of Rotimi Amaechi is a 20-year journey crafted by his benefactor and political mentor, Dr Peter Odili. But as it is with many, Amaechi has grown monstrous with his political pursuits, so much so he has forgotten where he is coming from. Those who doubt this shoukd ask him about his relationship with Dr Odili. They are daggers drawn.
Currently, Nigeria’s serving Minister of Transportation, Amaechi came into position of value when he was spotted and given opportunity to move up the ladder of life by Dr Peter Odili. He was a debt collector in Dr Odili’s PAMO Clinics in Port Harcourt. Later he became Special Assistant to Dr Odili as Deputy Governor of the state between 1992 and 1993.
In 1999, he was elected through the court into the Rivers State House of Assembly and became Speaker of the House for two terms between 1999 and 2007; at the same time, he was made Chairman of Nigeria Conference of Speakers.
In 2007, Rotimi Amaechi became Governor of Rivers State through the legal process and re-elected for another four years in 2011. He is a recipient of one of the country’s highest national honours – Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON).
He defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) on November 27, 2013 and as a compensation for his betrayal of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the APC in 2015 appointed him Minister of Transportation.
As Director General of the Muhammadu Buhari Presidential Campaign both in 2015 and 2019, he appropriated and arrogated influence and power to himself telling his new allies in the APC how evil his erstwhile benefactors were.
Aggregating these past and current accomplishments – 8 years as governor, 8 years as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, and four years as minister of the Federal Republic; it would appear that the most recent engagements of Rotimi Amaechi is an outright denigration of the honour done him by his people and those whom God in His infnite wisdom have allowed to assist him become a person of substance.
With a track record of an incurable appetite to destroy the very structure that brought him into relevance, it would be recalled that in the run up to his 2007 governorship ambition in Rivers State, Amaechi who was then the Speaker of the State House, mounted a campaign of calumny against the very government and person of Dr Peter Odili who had sustained him.
For many who do not know, that the battle for the emergence of Amaechi as a governor was fought by present governor of Rivers State, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike who ensured victory at the courts and brought Amaechi back from Ghana to become governor.
It is on record that this callous hunger to control not only the leadership of the APC in the state but, dictatorial control of a complex state like Rivers, precipitated the series of activities engineered and sustained by Amaechi and which denied the APC an opportunity to vie for any office in the 2019 elections.
It is infra dig for a man who was a nobody, from the back waters of his local village, Ubima in Ikwerre Local Government Area and has emerged into national politics to harbour intense hatred for the people and state that made him.
Honourable Chibuike Amaechi owes the entire people of Rivers State an apology for assaulting their sensibilities and right to choose candidates of their choice at any election.
On the other hand, the APC should be inquisitive as to how and why the party became a subject of ridicule in Rivers State instead of allowing itself to be deceived into thinking that Nyesom Wike is its problem. No, not at all, the APC problem in Rivers is the man who now constitutes the party’s shame in the South-South.
Ifeanyichukwu, a political analyst writes from Enugu.

Alexaander Ifeanyichukwu