Governor Amaechi Opens Up On His Problem With President Jonathan

Rivers State governor, Rotimi Chi­buike Amaechi, has said that the reason he has problem with President Goodluck Jonathan, whom he described as a man who God has blessed, is that he has refused to give people the opportunity to reverse the current trend of poverty, even as he watches people steal the country’s monies.

In an interview with jour­nalists on his achievements while in office, he alleged that corruption is now a state policy.

He said: “Under former presidents Obasanjo and Yar’Adua, the oil subsidy was N300bn, but six months into 2011 under Jonathan, the oil subsidy became N2.3trn. When governors went on strike, it was N1.7trn, and we said we wouldn’t collect our monthly allocation unless they returned/stopped further subsidy, and Jonathan swore he would, but didn’t.

“ After a while, we didn’t see the documents again un­til the National Assembly investigated and found out it was N2.3 trillion.”

According to him, the equations that put President Goodluck Jonathan in power are no longer in place. “The only equation I can’t account for is that of God. If God puts him back in power, glory be to Him, but if you take away the equation of God, the rest has changed.”

He however said that his major worry during the elec­tions is whether the people will come out to vote, stress­ing, “ Don’t forget that the places where you see rigging most are the South-south and South-east, and that is because there were no oppo­sition parties.”

On his achievement in the past eight years, Amaechi said that people claim that he did very well in education.

“My happiness is that I see children go to school; when we came, many chil­dren whose parents could afford it were going to pri­vate schools but when we finished building, people began to move their chil­dren from private schools to public schools; we had to hire about 13,200 teach­ers.

“At first, our detractors were denying that there were no such teachers, now they claim we owe them eight months salary. There is no Nigerian you will owe for eight months who won’t either go on strike or begin to complain. The fact that we have no complaints and there are no strikes means somebody is lying some­where just to paint our names black. We do not owe,” Amaechi said.