How I risked my life to enthrone Buhari—Amaechi

Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transportation, says he could have been killed during the fight to install President Muhammadu Buhari.

Amaechi, who was Director-General of the campaign team of Buhari, de-marketed former President Goodluck Jonathan, who was a threat to the emergence of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

He attacked Jonathan in public and private and as the election drew near, there were reports that he would be one of the targets if the APC lost the election.

He was also involved in different rows with security agencies, particularly the police under Joseph Mbu, a former commissioner of police in Rivers.

Speaking on Saturday during the inauguration of a pro-APC non-governmental organisation, Free Rivers Development Initiative (FRDI) in Bori, Khana local government area of Rivers, Amaechi said the “machinery of power” which killed Ken Saro Wiwa was still in force as of the time Buhari sought the highest office in the land.

He said Saro Wiwa fought for the liberation of Ogoni people, south-south and the Niger Delta because he believed they were oppressed.

“Saro-Wiwa was killed by the then machinery of power because of his belief that Ogonis and the Niger Delta should be liberated,” he said.

“I could have been killed by same machinery of power when we were fighting to install President Muhammadu Buhari because we fought the same power that killed Saro-Wiwa.”

According to Amaechi, some Ogoni sons and daughters find it difficult to identify with the late environmentalist but he identified with him.

“Everybody is now claiming to love Ogoni and knew Ken Saro-Wiwa because of election,” he said.

“If you love Ogoni, bring projects to Ogoni, train their children because as governor, I trained Ogoni children overseas.

“I made sure that government paid all the fees because education was one of the issues that Saro-Wiwa died for.”

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Amaechi said when he was governor of Rivers, he planned to turn Bori, a community in Ogoniland, into a big city, and that was why he constructed all the internal roads in the city.

“When I became governor, there was no light in Bori and we brought light from Port Harcourt to the city,” he said.

“It was because of poverty I experienced that made me to build primary schools, primary health centres and employed teachers and doctors respectively.

“Today, the current government has reversed everything we did including free education and free healthcare care policies.”