10th April, 2013
Embattled Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, has broken his silence and disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan is witch-hunting him because of his opposition to gargantuan corruption in the fuel subsidy regime by the Federal Government.
The Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, also divulged that he has been blacklisted by the presidency and ostracised from some official functions, especially foreign missions.
Amaechi disclosed that efforts are also being made by Jonathan to bully him out of the chairmanship of the NGF because he has maintained that corruption in the petrol subsidy payments must stop.
At a seminar organised in Ikogosi Ekiti, Ekiti State, southwest Nigeria, by The Future Project, Amaechi said subsidy payment is mired in fraud, as federal officials “balloon the figures.”
He said the presidency is not happy with him for insisting that transparency and accountability are needed in the payment of petrol subsidy.
Amaechi said it was for this reason that the Governors Forum went to court to challenge the legality of the federal government’s action of using money meant for the three tiers of government to pay for petrol subsidy.
“It is one reason they don’t want me as governors’ chairman,” Amaechi said at the seminar.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Tony Anenih, on Tuesday, pleaded with Amaechi, not to defect from the party.
Anenih and other PDP stalwarts were in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital on Tuesday on a mission to mend fences with the governor.
—Simon Ateba