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Tag: Amaechi

  • Amaechi is mentally challenged, says Wike

    Rivers state Governor Nyesom Wike has said that the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, is mentally challenged.

    He made this known on Wednesday when the management of the Silverbird Group gave him his nomination letter as the Silverbird Man of the Year, 2017.

    “Former Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has a serious mental case. This is what makes it difficult for him to appreciate the seriousness of security issues,” Wike said.

    “That is the kind of people that we have in the Federal Cabinet. With such people, it is impossible for the country to make progress. He needs urgent medical attention “.

    He described as ridiculous the false allegation by the former Rivers governor that he armed the perpetrators of the Omoku killings.

    The governor wondered why Amaechi would prefer to blame him for the killings in Omoku, while refusing to blame the APC governors of Benue, Kwara and Kaduna States for killings in their states.

    He said: “Amaechi is the one who manipulates the posting of security heads to Rivers State using the Federal Government. They know what they are doing.

    “If they are planning anything against Rivers State, they will not succeed.”

  • 2019: Buhari’s boys launch campaign, mobilise for PMB/Osinbajo ticket

    Minister of Communications, Alhaji Adebayo Shittu, on Wednesday said although President Muhammadu Buhari has not made up his mind on the 2019 presidential election, he must seek re-election because he has done well so far.

    Shittu said this in an interview with State House correspondents shortly after a meeting he had with Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    The minister said those of them who he described as the President’s ardent supporters would prevail on him to seek re-election.

    He said they would help Buhari to make up his mind so that Nigeria can continue to enjoy stability and progress.

    Specifically on whether the President will contest, Shittu said, “It goes without saying. I mean if you have a child who goes to primary school and he does well; he proceeds to secondary school and he does well, and you keep asking if he will be going to university. It goes without saying.

    “By the grace of God, we his (Buhari’s) ardent supporters who appreciate his worth on behalf of millions of Nigerians would urge him to re-contest.

    “I know he has not made up his mind but I can say that some of us can assist him in making up his mind so that nigeria can continue to enjoy stability and progress in our land.”

    The minister said he seized the opportunity of the meeting with the President to inform him that he has appointed a national chairman of the Board of Trustees of Muhammadu Buhari/Osinbajo Dynamic Support Group.

    Recall that Buhari has reportedly reappointed his Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, as the Director-General of his 2019 election campaign.

    According to THISDAY, Buhari may have finally made the decision to seek re-election and has started preparing to campaign.

    The President has hinted at contesting a few times in the past, but is refusing to share his aspirations with many people.

    He has, however, discussed the matter with Amaechi, who had convinced him to run in 2015.

    Sources close to the All Progressives Congress (APC), also hinted that although a majority of party members are not averse to Buhari’s re-election bid, they have advised that things be done properly.

  • 2019: Buhari kick-starts re-election bid, appoints Amaechi as campaign DG

    President Muhammadu Buhari has reportedly reappointed his Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, as the Director-General of his 2019 election campaign.

    According to THISDAY, Buhari may have finally made the decision to seek re-election and has started preparing to campaign.

    The President has hinted at contesting a few times in the past, but is refusing to share his aspirations with many people.

    He has, however, discussed the matter with Amaechi, who had convinced him to run in 2015.

    Sources close to the All Progressives Congress (APC), also hinted that although a majority of party members are not averse to Buhari’s re-election bid, they have advised that things be done properly.

  • Rivers killings: Fix security challenges or resign, Ameachi tells Wike

    The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Tuesday challenged Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to either provide adequate security in the state or resign from office.

    The minister, who is also a former governor of the state, said this in an interview with State House correspondents after a meeting he had with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    He was reacting to the killing of 21 residents of the state on their way back from New Year’s crossover service.

    “It never happened when I was governor. We (the security chiefs and myself) ensured that we didnt sleep at night. We stayed awake for the citizens to sleep. I think the governor needs to do much more than that or quit the office,” he said.

    The minister said the governor needed to be more serious and stop encouraging the militant groups in the name of politics and election.

    He said while the issue of the 21 residents was in the public domain, two other persons were killed in Akutoru.

    He alleged that similar scenario played out in other local government areas in the state.

    Amaechi added, “I think there should be much more than age to qualify to be a governor because it takes much more than age.

    “I was governor of Rivers State, I did not play PDP/APC politics. Life is life, it has no symbol. Nobody has APC life or PDP life.

    “The first responsibility of a governor which is what the oath of office requires, is that you swear to protect lives and property.

    “When you don’t protect life and property, what do you do? It is impeachment. Unfortunately, there is no House of Assembly in Rivers State.

    “There is too much noise coming from Rivers State. The governor just wakes up and starts shouting, abusing people. That is all he does. Mr. Project painting roads.

    “The first thing you do is human capacity development and keeping human beings and we are losing lives every day.”

    The minister said Wike had no reason not to secure the state because he has everything working for him.

    “I just don’t know because the things are there for him to work with. He is not like me when during my second term, President Goodluck Jonathan took away Police, SSS. The Army brigade commander couldn’t visit me.

    “But in his case, everyone is disposed to him. He can see the Commissioner of Police, director SSS, unlike my period but we fought insecurity.

    “But because he needs these people for election purpose that is why they are still there, that is why they are killing, we need much more than that.

    “Unfortunately, I swore not to be talking about Rivers anymore but you don’t keep quiet in the face of 21 lives, you can’t just keep quiet.

    “I have said it that nobody should criticise his successor. But a successor that watches the lives of people go like that and does not care? God will bless him, ” he said.

  • Nigerian youths should question leaders on what they are doing with public funds – Amaechi

    …says youths now openly celebrate corrupt officials

    The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, says Nigeria youth are copying the wrong model of leadership, an act, he notes, may jeopardise their future.

    Mr. Amaechi made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the Future Awards Africa held at the Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos last Saturday.

    He said the youth were not ready yet to embrace a corrupt-free society because they were wrongly orientated by those who were using them for their interest.

    “The problem with Nigerian youths is that they just want to take over from the elite but they are not ready to embrace change, they don’t want reform.

    “They say that the roles being played by the elite are not satisfactory, but they must be ready to upset the leaders of this country through their ingenuity.

    “For example, during our days of activism, we engage government over unfavourable policies and we get headlong even during the military administration.

    “Now, student union presidents want a vehicle and a driver to be driving him about to attend meetings; during our time, who dares have a car, we all struggle on the street, Mr. Amaechi told NAN.

    He advised youth to rise up to the fight against corruption instead of a tacit support to those that they feel are their benefactor.

    “I will advise the youth to fight against corruption with all their energy instead of giving tacit support to those they think are their benefactors.

    “During our time in the student union struggles, we rose against impunity and organised protests; but what happens today, the government of the day announces the money siphoned but the youth keep quiet.

    “Such astronomic stolen amount government announced wouldn’t have happened during our time, all the street would have been filled with youths protesting and seeing that the culprits were punished.

    “Today, we have some of our youths dancing behind the corrupt politicians for a pot of meal that will not last long thereby mortgaging their future,’’ he said.

    Mr. Amaechi said Nigerian youth should stand up to the reality of life by asking questions from leaders on how they manage the economy and the Commonwealth of Nigeria.

    “Nigerian youths should start asking questions from leaders, including me about what we are doing with our resources. It’s time to reject those that put us in this.

    “We should all desist from pulling our country down through corruption. But unfortunately, the youth are not interested in that, all what they want is how to look good.

    “Maybe they looked at me wearing designer shoes, what they will notice is that designer and how they can get it. That is not supposed to be.

    “During my time as a student union leader, I had only two pairs of clothes. But now the value system is wrong and the youth are copying wrong leadership model,’’ he said.

    (NAN)

  • We were elected to offer good governance not blame Jonathan – Amaechi

    The Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has said Nigerians elected President Muhammadu Buhari against former President Goodluck Jonathan to offer good governance and not to blame it for Nigerian’s woes as the administration has done from inception in 2015.

    Amaechi spoke during a meeting at his office on Tuesday.

    In his words: “I agree with those who said we should stop criticising the last government and that we should do our own.”

    The minister decried Nigeria’s infrastructure deficit, drawing a comparison with other relatively new countries like Singapore.

    “We need to leverage on what we know. People are shouting intermodal transport; I went to the new airport in Singapore and I didn’t find one person at the airport.

    “As you walk in, technology takes over,” he said.

    The minister however called for an urgent renaissance in Nigeria’s infrastructure, especially in the area of information and communications technology.

    “They also said in the next few years, they would introduce driverless cars. We should also think outside the box about how to improve our transport sector and think less about how sun and moon affect the sector or building more bus stops.

    “We should see how much investment we can put in the area of ICT. Intelligence transportation should not be ignored,” he added.

     

  • Connect all 36 states by rail, Buhari tells Amaechi

    President Muhammadu Buhari has given the directive that all the 36 state capitals should be connected with rail in the ongoing railway projects.

    The Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, said this on Thursday at the meeting with the Chairman Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, Shehu Sani.

    The meeting, also attended by the Ministers of Finance; Budget and National Planning; and Power, Works and Housing, was in connection with President Buhari’s loan request of $5.5 billion sent to the Senate.

    Mr. Amaechi said that the central rail line project connecting several communities of northern and southern Nigeria would be completed in June, next year.

    According to him, 17 coaches are expected to arrive in November and out of the number, 10 will be deployed to Abuja-Kaduna rail line while the remaining seven will be deployed to the Itakpe-Warri rail line.

    Mr. Amaechi said that part of the money being requested now for approval by the Senate was to execute the rail projects covering Kano-Kaduna, and Lagos-Ibadan networks.

    Mr. Sani had earlier advised that if Nigeria “must borrow, it must borrow responsibly”.

    Mr. Sani said: “the committee has the mandate to examine the merits and otherwise of the current loan request of $5.5 billion of the president.

    “If we must bequeath to the future generation a pile of debt, it must be justified with commensurate infrastructural proof of the value of the debt.

    “The payment plan of this debt will undoubtedly last the length of our lifetimes and possibly beyond.

    “We must leave behind a legacy that will appease and answer the questions the next generation of Nigerians will ask,” Mr. Sani said.

    Senator Shehu Sani [Photo credit: Instagram]

    Also providing insight into the loan request, the Director-General, Debt Management Office, Patience Oniha, explained that the loans have sustainable benefits that would live beyond the present generation of Nigerians.

    “What we should take away is that we are going into projects whose benefits don’t go away.

    “The roads don’t go away, the schools don’t go away, and the hospitals don’t go away but all that we need to do is to maintain them properly and that is the explanation I want to make on that,” she said.

    (NAN)

  • Nigeria never had any approved National Transport Policy since independence – Amaechi

    The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi on Wednesday lamented the poor state of the country’s transportation sector, stressing that Nigeria never had any approved National Transport Policy since independence.

    Amaechi Amaechi who delivered a Keynote address at a seminar organised by the Abuja Transport and Aviation Correspondents Association (ATACA) in Abuja, noted that the country’s transport sector suffered as a result of the absence of a national transport policy since the country gained independence in 1960.

    The Minister said, “The ministry’s mandate is mainly tailored towards problem gap identification/analysis, policy formulation, policy implementation and evaluation.

    It may interest you to note that the transportation sector since independence does not have an approved National Transport Policy to coordinate and drive the growth of the sector.

    He added that the Ministry had to engage stakeholders on the need to tackle issues inhibiting the growth of the transportation sector which included the need for a National Transport Policy.

    Aside that, he also maintained that many legal and regulatory framework instruments of the agencies in the transportation sector had become obsolete.

    “We just concluded the 2017 edition of the National Council on Transportation in Sokoto State where two inter-ministerial committees involving relevant stakeholders were setup to handle two pressing issues in the sector.”

    On how far the committee went, he explained, “The committee on the finalisation of the National Transport Policy document which was before the Federal Executive Council and National Economic Council had been tasked to ensure that the policy is approved, as the outcome of their work would take the sector many steps ahead.”

    He, however, listed the transport reform bills to include the National Inland Waterways Authority Bill 2015 which seeks to repeal the National Inland waterways Authority Act Cap 47 LFN 2004, and the Nigerian Ports and Harbour Bill 2015, which seeks to repeal the Nigerian Ports Authority Act CAP 126 LFN 2004.

    Others he highlighted include the Nigerian Railways Authority Bill 2015 which seeks to repeal Nigeria Railways Authority Act CAP 129 LFN 2004, and the National Transport Commission Bill, which is an act to provide for the establishment of National Transport Commission as an independent multimodal economic regulator and other related matters.

    “Under our watch, the four transport sector reform bills have undergone various public hearing stages in both chambers of the National Assembly,” the minister said.

  • Intermodal transportation will reduce fares, create jobs – Amaechi

    Intermodal transportation will reduce fares, create jobs – Amaechi

    The Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi on Monday said the development of intermodal transportation would reduce fares and create more jobs in the country.

    Amaechi made the remarks at the opening ceremony of the 15th National Council on Transportation in Sokoto.

    The minister, who was represented by Sabiu Zakari, the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, said intermodal transportation would reduce congestion at the ports and create jobs.

    “ The development of intermodal transportation would reduce the cost of transportation, the influx of people and trucks to port cities thereby reducing congestion at the ports.

    “Create jobs by the optimal utilization of the various modes, develop modern transport infrastructure as the need arises and extend the life of the already existing ones.

    “By reducing the over reliance in a single mode, like we have done on the road mode in Nigeria,” Amaechi said.

    He said government has made modest strides in linking Apapa port to rail, saying bonded containers are being transported by rail from Apapa port to the Inland Container Nigeria Limited (ICNL) depot in Kaduna.

    Amaechi said plans were underway to connect all the seaports, airports and all the Inland Container Depots by rail.

    The minister said the economy was down and needs the transportation sector to contribute immensely to the economy.

    Declaring the event open, the Sokoto State Deputy Governor, Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu called for the extension of railway lines from Kauran Namode in Zamfara State to Sokoto.

    Aliyu, also the state Commissioner for Works and Transports, urged the Federal Government to establish Inland port in Illela Local Government, being centre for commerce.

    The deputy governor, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Alhaji Bello Abubakar, expressed government’s readiness to revive business activities in the state.

    Presenting his first lecture, Dr Aminu Yusuf, the Director General, Nigeria Institutes of Transport and Technology (NITT), Zaria, called for integration of transportation sector to model system.

    He said that Nigeria is signatory to World Trade Organisation (WTO), hence the need for liberation of transportation to international standard.

     

     

    NAN

  • Amaechi blasts Buhari, says ‘You treat Nnamdi Kanu with iron hand but pets Arewa youths’

    First Republic politician, Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, has reacted to the marching order given to Service Chiefs by President Muhammadu Buhari to crush Biafra agitators.

    The former Aviation Minister said the order was superficial and biased as it focuses on the utterances and activities of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, but remains mute to those of other ethnic groups that clearly violated Nigerian laws.

    Amaechi revealed this in an interview with The Sun.

    In his words: “If I wake up and say, I would go and blow up Aso Rock, would I be arrested, or when I march to Aso Rock fully armed?

    “Why the focus on Nnamdi Kanu, what of the other Arewa youths who are committing similar or more grievous offences? What has been done to them?

    “If Kanu breaks the law, let him be punished, not when he is unarmed and just making statement that his people are not being treated fairly.

    “What Kanu is saying is that Igbo want to go, if you don’t agree with him, put it to plebiscite. That is how it has been done in other places.

    “Scotland said it wanted to leave United Kingdom, and they put it to plebiscite, majority said they didn’t want to go away.

    “I don’t see why it should be different in Nigeria. Plebiscite does not amount to war.

    “In America, since Donald Trump came to power, two states have expressed the desire to quit US, has anybody killed them?

    “The only thing is that when the demand becomes serious, the government will give the opportunity for the people to decide.

    “What of those behind the anti-Igbo songs, what has the government done to them? What efforts have the security agencies made to bring them to book?”