Suddenly former Transportation Minister, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has become a political leper. No one wants to associate with him anymore. His political associates are abandoning him and pitching their tents with new friends.
The latest to ditch Amaechi is Ibim Semenitari former Information Commissioner under his regime as governor of Rivers State. She left last week and had since been received in the PDP fold.
Like others who had earlier left the APC, she gave the same ridiculous excuses that the party was longer well positioned to win elections in the state.
Senator Magnus Abe, Chief Chidi Wihioka, Barr. Wogu Boms, Chris Finebone, Ogbonna Nwuke and a host of other APC political bigwigs in the state had earlier abandoned Amaechi and the APC, embracing other political parties.
With the exception of Senator Magnus Abe, Chidi Wikioka or may be one or two other persons who left because of Amaechi’s alleged undemocratic management of the party, other allies abandoned him because he had been stripped of political powers, having lost out at the presidential primaries. Many of these associates had hoped he would win the primaries and subsequently become president, but it never happened.
Now floating in the air politically, Amaechi was longer in a position to influence appointments, hence his abandonment by political allies. It was not like this yesterday when he was Governor, or transportation minister. Many of these political turncoats used to crawl before him begging for one favour or the other. Some would stay for days at the corridors of his office massaging the ego of his personal aides who would make it easy for them to see ‘oga’.
Now everything has changed. Amaechi is no longer in power. There is no more political appointments to share. Everybody is running away from him. His allies have become fair-weather friends who only come to him when there were booties to be shared. The goings have now become rough for Amaechi, old friends have become enemies.
If Nigerian politicians had principle, they will neither betray their political friends, nor run to other parties at the slightest problems. If Amaechi had been stripped of powers today, he could become another big politician tomorrow. His political allies should not assume that his political career is finished, because tomorrow is always pregnant with what nobody can predict.
If Amaechi is appointed to another big political position tomorrow, would these political allies who betrayed him come to him for favours again? If they did, they would have eaten their own vomit. It would not be like the case of Joseph’s brothers who betrayed him but Joseph instead of punishing them when he became Governor in Egypt, he fed them and eventually brought them to Egypt for succour and protection. Am sure Amaechi would not behave like that to those who betrayed him because Nigerian politicians are vindictive.
The former Transportation Minister would not be different from them. He will certainly pay his betrayers in his own coins, because the sin of betrayal is not easily forgiven. It is like a machete cut on the palm of the hand, each time you opened it, the cut stares you in the face.
Although, betrayal runs deep in history, it is a very heinous crime to betray a friend, or somebody who helped to advance your career. That’s when betrayal becomes an unforgiveable sin.
Majority of the people who had abandoned Amaechi today are those he helped advanced their careers. A good number of them had worked under him as commissioners, or political aides, some he appointed into boards of corporations and parastatals.
The least they could have done this time he was nursing the wounds of his defeat at the APC presidential primaries would have been to comfort him and help him recover from the shock of defeat, not abandon him to his fate.
Although, it is true that if the shepherd is taken, the flock will scatter, yet principled and committed friends still stick to their friends when they run into troubled waters.
It is hoped that the former Rivers State Governor would have learned his lessons from this and re-strategize his political methods/systems.
