River State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has alleged that the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, was planning to bomb the offices of the Independent National Electoral commission, INEC, in the state and destroy voting materials at registration area centres.
Amaechi is also the Director General of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council
In a state broadcast on Thursday, Wike said Amaechi was intent on disrupting the peaceful conduct of the Saturday elections in the state.
The governor, who declared today, Friday February 15, 2019, as public holiday for the people to pray for God’s intervention in making the elections peaceful, also claimed that Amaechi was in cohort with some military and police officers, planning to carry out the attack on INEC offices, insisting he had credible intelligence regarding the plan.
He said, “Credible intelligence has linked Rotimi Amaechi and his cohorts in the factionalised APC with plans to prevent the peaceful conduct of the general elections in Rivers State with the support of some unpatriotic military and police officers.”
He said several Hilux vehicles painted in military colours and gunboats donated by a top official of Nigeria Ports Authority had been handed over to the militants to carry out the attacks across the state.
Gov. Wike expressed concern over what he described as ‘needless threats of violence’ by the Transport Minister at the party’s last presidential rally on Tuesday in Port Harcourt.
He said the internal crisis rocking the APC in the state was a fallout of Amaechi’s arrogance and refusal to follow due process saying, “It is therefore most unfortunate that instead of using internal party mechanisms to settle the festering crisis before it was too late, Rotimi Amaechi chose to act with impunity and is now hunted by the unpleasant outcomes of his arrogance and disdain for due process.
“Even at that, the Supreme Court has spoken and the only rational path left for Rotimi Amaechi is to recognise the fact that justice has prevailed over impunity,” he added.
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He further advised Amaechi to accept the consistent decisions of the courts in good faith and wait for 2023 elections.
Reacting to the allegations, Amaechi said he had never hired militants or thugs for any reason since joining politics 33 years ago and challenged any politician to prove that he had ever been involved in hiring thugs to cause destruction.
“I joined politics 33 years ago, let one politician either at the national or state level say he attended a meeting with Amaechi where I discussed about hiring thugs.”
Describing Wike’s allegations against him as false, the minister, instead alleged that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, was interested in ensuring that Wike got a second term in office as governor of Rivers State.
He said, “INEC is always working for the PDP. For an example, there is a stay of execution granted by the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, just because the INEC chairman was a director of TETFUND when Wike was the minister, he has refused to implement the judgment.”
