The Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi,
has denied allegations of corruption against him.
Mr. Amaechi says as governor of Rivers State for
eight years, he was transparent and did not
embezzle money meant for the people.
He denied receiving over N3.1 trillion naira as
alleged by his successor, Nyesom Wike.
Mr. Amaechi spoke at a stakeholders’ forum on
corruption organised by the Federal Ministry of
Justice in Abuja, Thursday.
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.
“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,”
he said.
Mr. Amaechi said transparency in the use of public
funds was key to his administration as governor,
and that the Rivers community was fully briefed
periodically on how funds were being utilised.
“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 N3
trillion 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,” he said.
“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,” Mr. Amaechi said.
He 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…” Mr. Amaechi said.
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