Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC),Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, has expressed concern over what he described as Gov. Nyesom Wike’s habitual strife towards former Rivers Governor now Transportation Minister, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, especially, each time Nigerians plan to honour him(Amaechi) in recognition of his efforts and sacrifices towards the success of the Buhari led APC administration and the overall development of the country.
In a statement made available to media houses in Port Harcourt, the party Chief, posited that whatever be the plans of Wike, he will not detract the minister from his focus, dedication and responsibility.
“Any time Amaechi is to receive one accolade or the other from Nigerians, the Wike administration would always cook up one frivolous issue to discredit the Minister and poison the minds of the people and scare them away”, he fumed.
Eze counseled the Governor to desist from dragging the Transportation Minister into trivial issues, stressing that the former Rivers Governor and other members of the Muhammadu Buhari team are preoccupied with very sensitive national engagements geared towards placing the country on the path of progress and complementing ongoing efforts at lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty.
He called on Nigerians to be wary of the antics of Gov. Wike, whose docile posture represents a clear departure from the norms of leadership and democratic tenets in a progressive clime.
The party chieftain expressed disgust over claims by the governor that the Transportation Minister, while as Rivers Governor, flew and abandoned in Germany since 2012, an aircraft -Legacy 600, belonging to the state, in very surreptitious circumstances and without a trace of any documentation to that effect.
Describing the claim as terribly discordant with available records and facts, Chief Eze said as Chief of Staff to Amaechi, Gov. Wike is stocked with first-hand knowledge of every decision and action taken during the pendency of that administration over critical issues of public concern including the arrangement to fly the said Legacy 600 aircraft to Germany, for refurbishment after the State acquired a new air-plane which he now uses as Governor.
“The whole arrangement was made in 2011, before Amaechi sent his name to Jonathan for Ministerial appointment which he got on July 14, 2011. So by that, he was still part of the administration when the decision to send the Aircraft to Germany was taken”, he said.
He recalled that in 2015, while addressing a press conference in Government House, Port Harcourt a few months after he was sworn in to succeed Amaechi, Gov. Wike said he was sending a delegation to Germany to confirm the state of the said Legacy 600, – the aircraft in contention and negotiate the possible path to return same to the state.
“The report which was widely published in some local and national newspapers in 2015 had the following excerpt from his statement -“We are sending somebody to Germany tomorrow. I got security information that plane is parked somewhere in Germany. As I speak to you, there was no report, no handover to say this is where it is. There is another one parked at the Air Force Base. I heard it will take about two months before it be fixed.”
“Between 2015 when Gov. Wike sent an agent to Germany and 2022, is about eight years and only a clueless Governor like him, with a defective understanding of leadership and hollow sense of reasoning will abandon a state asset in a foreign land for eight years only to wake up one morning to apportion blame to a man so faultless”.
“It is even more embarrassing to the sensibilities of the lettered Rivers public to hear the Governor mention that €3million or about N1.5Bn have been expended on clearing the accumulated parking fee for the number of years the air craft was in Germany and even more millions of Euros have gone down the drain in servicing the engine and general overhaul of the Legacy-600”.
“One would have loved to see a situation where the Governor puts up the aircraft for sale, in line with the initial arrangement of the previous administration, to generate money and channel same to some reasonable, fruitful ventures. Rather than that, the Governor opted for a bizarre economic waste as usual”.
“It is important to note that contrary to the claims of Gov. Wike, the Legacy 600 aircraft, its movement and domicile in Germany are contained in the handover note of the Ministry of Transport prepared at the end of the Chibuike Amaechi administration in 2015, and this fact has earlier been buttressed by George Tolofari, who served as Commissioner in that Ministry in the previous administration”.
“It is an amusing bit of foolery for Gov. Wike to go the length of dragging the Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi, into the messy waters of calumny with very discordant narratives in a bid to evade responsibility for the huge waste to which he has committed the state”.
“What more could be more idiotic and senseless than a Governor who freely engages in fanfare of squander-mania, this time, to the extent of burning millions of Euros on a venture that promises no yield for the state and her people especially, at a time when the complaint of paucity of funds is his daily anthem and biggest selling point for his abysmal performance and colossal failure to allow democratic dividends trickle down to the people”.
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“It is saddening to learn that Wike who was part of the FG caucus that grounded the Rivers planes both at home and abroad is now making ‘discovery’ of them, even when FAAN had in 2013 given reasons why it grounded the planes and stopped the ones abroad from flying in”, he stated.
Eze alleged that Gov. Wike helped the Jonathan administration to divert Rivers oil wells to Bayelsa State and other states, transferred the disputed money kept in an escrow account to Bayelsa, grounded the state planes, stoped drawdown of loans to Rivers and frustrated the refund of over N100Bn spent on federal projects, etc, and thus should desist from posing as a messiah, fighting for today what he fought against yesterday.
