– Amaechi says Wike cannot produce documents that shows he embezzled N3.1trillion when he was governor of Rivers state
– The Minister of Transportation warns Nigerians to be wary of Wike’s lies
– He says Buhari’s first policy is to tackle corruption and his second is economy development
Barely 48 hours after a peace meeting was brokered by the police and the Department of State Services between Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state and Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, the latter has again hit out at his successor.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on corruption organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice in Abuja, Thursday, July 28, Amaechi warned Nigerians not be deceived by Wike’s lies.
According to him, the allegations by Wike that he embezzled over N3.1trillion is not true.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has said his successor Gov Nyesom Wike has no proof to show that he stole Rivers state money
READ ALSO: Wike reveals why he finally made peace with Amaechi
Amaechi said he was transparent and did not embezzle money meant for the people and even Wike can’t proof that he stole money, Premium Times reports.
He said Rivers state became the first to implement the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) act in Nigeria during his tenure as governor of the state.
He said: “If you had followed the Rivers state government when I was governor, we were the first state to introduce the Public Procurement Law in the country. The state cabinet used to call the Director General of Public Procurement in the state as an alternative governor, that they wanted an amendment to that law. The reason they wanted amendment is that he (DG) refused to increase the threshold to one hundred million naira, per ministry, instead he reduced it to 10 million naira.
“I had a battle with him (DG BPE) and the world bank who insisted that we should not go for an amendment but should persuade him to increase the threshold. I remember the cabinet tried to go to court against him and I remember that he was also trying to go to court against Commissioners. In fact, the procurement DG wrote a memo that I felt was very incriminating requesting that since the law requires the governor to take any commissioner who doesn’t comply with the public procurement law to court, I should please take the commissioner of education to court for not complying… Everybody in the cabinet felt that he was an alternative governor, they felt that he was slowing the process.
“Within that period we insisted on engaging the indigenous communities on how much we received and how we spent the money. That is why I feel that after this ministerial appointment, I should do everything possible to stay away from government because in spite of all the forms of transparency I introduced in government, one man could begin to tell lies to Nigerians and Nigerians believe him.
“The governor of Rivers state said I squandered N3trillion naira. I did not receive up to N1.8 trillion naira as governor both from IGR and funds from federal allocation. So, how could I have squandered money I did not even receive in the first place? You can see the politics of lies and lies.
“As Minister of Transportation, I run an open and transparent system. I believe in name and shame. What name and shame does is, if you name and shame those of them who don’t have conscience they won’t come to public functions. I do have conscience. In fact, it was the word corruption that brought me to this occasion because I wanted to see who will get up and say to me, ‘this is evidence that you are corrupt.
“We went to court against the Rivers state government on their allegation of corruption against me. The Court of Appeal said, produce that document that found this man (Amaechi) guilty of those crimes and up till today he (Wike) has not produced it.”
Amaechi also urged the audience to draw closer to government, pay more attention and engage political appointees to an open government.
“Please come to all of us in government, all the ministers in government and engage us on open government. For me, for ministry of transportation any information you want please write to us we will not only give you, we will give you on time. This is because all of us that have become ministers have been entrusted by the President. His first policy is corruption; the second one is economic development. We have been appointed by the President to go and do those following things to ensure that there is fund that we save from the people’s money to develop the community and the community we have is the Nigerian community.
“Indeed you are our leaders, we are here by the grace of God and by your grace and we believe that you have the right to ask questions. We believe that you have the right to demand accountability from ministers. We believe that nobody has the right to rise from just being an ordinary graduate of a university by courtesy of holding public office, he now owns mansions, cars.”
READ ALSO: Buhari vows to probe corrupt APC members, hails Fashola
On Tuesday, July 26, the IGP had organised a peace meeting between Wike and Amaechi in Abuja.
The peace meeting was organized for the peaceful conduct of rerun elections in Rivers state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced the postponement of the legislative rerun in the state earlier slated for Saturday, July 30, following the burning of its office in Khana local government area.
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