Former Governor of Rivers State and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has accused Governor Nyesom Wike of killing all institutions he left behind to generate employment which has given rise to high level of insecurity in Rivers.
But Wike hits back, saying it is disingenuous for Amaechi to attribute insecurity in the State to unemployment, calling the minister a frustrated man.
Amaechi spoke at the All Progressives Congress (APC) Secretariat at Aba Road, Port Harcourt while officially welcoming some top members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who decamped to the APC.
He attributed the lack of job opportunities, inadequate security intelligence, insensitivity to the plight of the people to the high rate of criminality in the state.
The minister recalled that during his administration as governor, he deployed full arsenal on criminals and chased them away, adding that he never locked any Police Station or slept in the army barracks.
“I created employment opportunities. I brought contractors and paid them so that they could pay the people. I established Songhai Farm, Banana Farm, Buguma Fish Farm. I employed over 13,000 teachers. But today all those things have been destroyed,” he lamented.
The former Rivers Governor said he also made the Rivers electorate understand that they were his employer while he was their servant.
He charged the people to know that they are superior to political leaders because they elected them, warning that the moment they lose sight of this, political leaders would take them for a ride.
Some of the decampees include former Commissioner for Urban development and town planning, Dr.Reason Onyia; former PDP chieftain in Akuku Toru, Austin Bob-Manuel, Charles Nwaorgu, Worlu Joshua, Miebaka Nabiebu, Alaye Eremie, Asitoa Charles Horsfall, Emma Ajikeru, Ebelogu Chinasa Sampson, Newton Gordon Kpasa, Peter Bob, Bethel Chigozie Ernest, Nkechi Anyike, Lawrence Thompson, among others.
However, in a swift reaction, asked: “Is unemployment fuelling insecurity in Kaduna, Plateau, Borno, Yobe, Ondo, Ebony, Imo, Niger States governed by the All Progressives Congress (APC)?”
He said if the Minister has any modicum of sincerity, he would attest to the fact that security is the sole responsibility of the federal government.
“Is he (Amaechi) trying to indict his boss, President Muhammad Buhari, who is the Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and who is constitutionally saddle with the responsibility to provide security for Nigerians?
“It is a well known fact that Amaechi is the one who appoints every Commissioner of Police that has been posted to Rivers State since 2015. So, if there is any security failure, he is to blame.”
Wike described the Minister’s comment as “misguided utterance” on the current imposition of curfew in the State, following the recent attacks on police formations.
“Perhaps, the Minister is happy that members of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) are killing innocent policemen, who were protecting lives and property. Is Amaechi happy that the weapons of these slain security personnel were carted away by the hoodlums? Amaechi, from all indication has lost focus and is now frustrated.”
Wike declared that his administration has offered scholarship to over 500 Rivers State students to study medicine and other related courses at the PAMO University.
He said Amaechi’s jubilation over the defection of his former Commissioner of Urban and Rural Planning, Dr Reason Onya, who was indicted by a judicial Commission of inquiry, is a pointer that he is politically irrelevant in Rivers State.
The governor further urged the minister to return to Abuja and resolve the financial malfeasance rocking federal agencies under his watch, and desist from destroying the homes of others.
