[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ormer governor of Rivers State, and current minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi is in Port Harcourt today, to celebrate his 52nd birthday.
And from all appearances, Mr Amaechi is in campaign mode for the next election cycle in the State.
His intention obviously is to impose a governor of Rivers State, through subterfuge and electoral gerrymandering in 2019.
But anyone familiar with the politics of Rivers State would be struck by the cosmic irony of today’s event.
It is a classic case of a rapist returning to his victim to ask for love.
It is important to constantly remind a forgetful public, that Mr Amaechi was indicted for stealing billions of public funds, by a court-approved judicial panel of inquiry set up by the State Government.
Even by the standards of Nigerian political misbehavior, Mr Amaechi’s record presents a unique and intriguing specimen.
Here is a man whose brazen refusal to pay pensioners their entitlements for six months contributed to the deaths of hundreds of senior citizens in Rivers State, between 2014-2015.
Mr Amaechi’s thoughtless policies and reckless public spending literally broke the economic spine of Rivers State. His administration was marked by myth making and public deceit.
As he spoke to his captive audience today, Mr Amaechi missed a chance to explain exactly where the so-called Justice Karibi-Whyte Specialist General Hospital, on which he spent billions of naira, is located in Rivers State.
Where exactly is that General Hospital in Rivers State? On land, sea, or air? Mr Amaechi may be the first Nigerian politician to have run a government, by following the protocols of fiction.
Throughout the 2015 political campaigns, the All Progressives Congress (APC) presented itself as a better alternative to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Mr Amaechi’s adjectival insistence that he is the “leader” of the APC in Rivers State, is the clearest indication of the moral carcass that the party of “change” has become in Nigeria.
Dr. Austin Tam-George is the commissioner for information and communication, Rivers State. Connect with him Facebook.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author.
