The sighting of a state-of-the-arts edifice at the posh Old GRA in Port Harcourt, a property under construction, allegedly belonging to the Transportation Minister and former Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, is causing ripples in the Garden City as a cross section of the people saw the development as making a u-turn.
The factional leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State had been reputed to have told everyone who cared to know, that he never liked money and doesn’t own any house anywhere in Nigeria including his home soil of Ubima in Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State and doesn’t intend to own one.
But impeccable sources in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, told this medium that this latest state of affairs had vindicated critics who insist that Amaechi’s outlandish claim of not owning any house anywhere in Nigeria is the height of hypocrisy as he was believed to be one of Nigeria’s biggest landlords, with his properties in real estate sprouted across the country.
Our source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wondered how a governor whose eight-year reign in Rivers State has continued to raise many unanswered questions of financial imprudence as exposed by the Justice Omereji report, “would convince us with those tales by moonlight”.
“Even after his indictment by a commission of inquiry set up by the Rivers State Government opened up so much can of worms about his administration’s mismanagement of funds, he went on to insult our sensibilities with claims of not owning a single house in Port Harcourt or elsewhere”, he said.
However, some analytical minds who also chose to have their identities concealed, noted that these latest turn of events may have been informed by the course of current political realities both in the State and nation at large.
“With the fortunes of the APC in Rivers State now in the doldrums, Amaechi could as well be looking for a soft landing”, one analyst posited.
This development has also elicited reactions from civil society groups who are spoiling for war over alleged shielding of the Transportation Minister and his cohorts from the fangs of the anti-graft agencies, notably the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
These civil society groups who are warming to dust up petitions against Amaechi to the EFCC, wondered why the APC led federal government would continue to cover up indicted officials and members of the APC.
“What is Amaechi’s salary as a Minister to afford the erection of such monumental structure in Port Harcourt? And if his salary cannot get it, where is the money coming from?”, they asked.
