by Reno Omokri

Again, Nigeria’s Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, has left the issues raised by my response to his fallacious interview to impugn my character in a vicious ad hominem attack on me. My response is as follows:

Why should I respond to the trash that Rotimi Amaechi has thrown at me? Out of the fullness of the heart, a man speaks. He has trash within him so he always vomits trash.

I do not react to trash. I leave trash to LAWMA. Rotimi Amaechi, with his pot belly and ill fitting designer clothes, is trash. My dear minister, here is the address of Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA: No. 3 Iddo – Yard, Ijora Olopa,
Lagos State. You can report for duty there since it is your natural habitat!

Rather than trash, I will prefer to respond to issues. The issues are very clear. Rotimi Amaechi falsely accused ex-President Goodluck Jonathan of pilfering $49.8 billion in his interview.

I proved that he lied. I proved that the maker of that allegation, the then Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi later withdrew it after he was faced with evidence of its falsity.

I proved that in February of 2014, the then CBN Governor wrote another letter to the Senate admitting that he did not know how much or if anything was unaccounted for saying (and I quote from Sanusi’s letter) it could be “$10.8 billion or $12 billion or $19 billion or $21 billion — we do not know at this point”.

I also proved that Rotimi Amaechi was being hypocritical when he accused the former President of not saving because he was the one who, as then Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum, insisted on September 21, 2012 that the saved funds in the Excess Crude Account be shared.

I proved that when former President Jonathan REFUSED to share the funds, Rotimi Amaechi led the NGF to sue the then Federal Government at the Supreme Court and got a judgment compelling the Jonathan administration to share the money saved in the Excess Crude Account.

As a result of these actions, the Jonathan administration was forced to pay the 36 states of the federation a total of N2.92 trillion from the Excess Crude Account by 2014. Using the value of the Naira at that time that amount was just above $20 billion dollars. This was money that was to be saved.

Again Rotimi Amaechi proves that he is as irrelevant as the P in Psychology by spending his time making false allegations instead of fulfilling the mandate giving him to improve Nigeria’s transport infrastructure. Is he so jobless?

But I am not surprised. His masters already saw just how jobless he is which is why during the 2015 campaigns he was reduced to a driver to President Muhammadu Buhari and Malam Nasir Elrufai. How the people of Rivers state suffered to the extent that their Governor became a chauffeur.

You can take a donkey to the River but you cannot force it to drink and you can make Amaechi a minister but you cannot force him to act like a minister. His proper calling in life was perhaps to be a driver!

Rotimi Amaechi had no money to finish the mono rail in his state, but he had $500,000 to spend on a one day dinner for Professor Wole Soyinka by his own admission. Is that not proof that he likes food more than knowledge and development?

When he became governor of Rivers state in 2007, the state treasury was fat and his belly was lean, by the time he left in 2015, the state treasury was lean and his belly was fat. In fact, Rotimi Amaechi’s belly swapped destiny with his state’s treasury!

I have had a life before government. I worked at a bank, at Parliament, as VP of a political consulting firm and now I run my own profitable business. Does Rotimi Amaechi have a life outside government?

The only job that he has had outside government was a job as Peter Odili’s PA at Pamo Clinics and Hospitals, Port Harcourt. Thereafter, he rode on Odili’s coattails from one government post to the other. His only political skill being to betray one political godfather as soon as he finds a bigger one.

Government post is Rotimi Amaechi’s oxygen and this was what former President Olusegun Obasanjo saw when he stopped him from becoming Governor in 2007 because he knew that a man who cannot generate wealth in his private business is condemned to forever be a sycophantic political prostitute.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now see that President Obasanjo was right!

If Rotimi Amaechi wants to shut my mouth then I challenge him to go to Rumukwurushi Market in Port Harcourt without security and shout Sai Baba, Sai Amaechi. If he survives the encounter, I will forever leave him and his potbelly alone.

---

Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija

Reno Omokri is the founder of the Mind of Christ Christian Center in California, author of Shunpiking: No Shortcuts to God and Why Jesus Wept and the host of Transformation with Reno Omokri