A former Minister of Transport and former two-term governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, celebrated his 60th birthday penultimate week amid fanfare.

In this monitored interview, Amaechi whose critical role in opposition politics between 2013 and 2015 ultimately paved the way for the dominance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Nigerian politics, speaks on the coalition being put together against President Bola Tinubu ahead of 2027, electoral reform, state capture and weaponization of poverty.

He also has words of advice for the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu. Excerpts:

Congratulations on turning 60. No doubts, much of that time has been consumed by your involvement in Nigerian politics. With age and experience, does it get easier?

Let’s lay the ground rules. I accepted to participate in this interview because we said we will not discuss politics. There are only three political issues I will clear right away before we proceed to social issues. The first one is that nobody made me a governor but God, Dr. Peter Odili, and the Nigerian judiciary. Surprisingly, no journalist has ever asked that man that said he made me governor how he did it? Nobody has ever asked that question.

So how did you become governor?

I don’t know. I went to court. Lateef Fagbemi was my lawyer. He’s now the Attorney General of the Federation. Maybe you should ask him. So that’s one thing that needs to be made very, very clear. Two, it is not true that I offered him the position of Commissioner for Finance. I’ll call names, Mohammed Bello Adoke, flew all the way from Abuja to Port Harcourt to tell me that Wike asked me to make him Commissioner for Finance. And I said no because he has to work under me. I want him as Chief of Staff so that I can supervise him. I didn’t offer him Commissioner for Finance. You see, I’m saying this because I don’t want to join issues with children. Now we’re finished with politics, let’s go to social questions.

When you say you wanted to watch over him, what does that mean?

It means the governor supervising his staff.

Is it because you felt he was a bit of renegade…

No. I don’t want to discuss politics. I’ve told you here that it’s a governor supervising his staff. You know, he made himself Chief of Staff, he made himself Governor, he made himself Minister, he made himself local government chairman. So end it there. Don’t go further. Discuss my 60th birthday, let’s move forward.

Do you have satisfaction at what you’ve achieved at the age of 60? Do you think that you’ve become a man of substance?

Every time I speak, I seem to want to first thank God, then I thank Dr. Peter Odili and his wife for the role they played in my life. And I continue to say to people and to my wife and my children that I will never go against Dr. Odili and his wife, no matter what they do to me.

They have done so many things that you will want to scream, but then you have to hold back yourself and say to yourself, God used this man to bless me. What if they had said no? God used him, so you must respect God by respecting them. Now when you look at your achievement and you have said this, then the rest will be hard work. I want to say this again, it’s political. If the current Chairman of INEC was the Chairman of the electoral body in 2015, we would not have won. May God bless (Attahiru) Jega.

It’s a very interesting point because the ground rules were clear. The current Chairman of INEC can only be compared to Iwu, honestly. When we were to register APC, Jega opened the door and once we complied with the registration requirements, he got APC registered. The current man, if you complied with all the requirements, he would not register you. Already INEC is biased.

You must be proud that you’ve accomplished so much in your life, certainly more than most people…

Well, it’s not because I’m the best. I had the opportunity, I utilized the opportunity. So when the opportunity came for me to be the Speaker of the Parliament, Dr. Odili and I spoke, he felt it was important that I became the Speaker. I utilized the opportunity. The problem is not in getting the opportunity but what you do with the opportunity. And God knows that I was one of the best Speakers that this country had produced at that material time.

I don’t know what’s happening now. Maybe there are better Speakers than I was. But at that time, nobody would deny me the fact that I performed my duty as Speaker, that I was elected to become the Chairman of the Speakers Forum. Since I left as Chairman of Speakers Forum, I wonder if that Speakers Forum is still in existence. So again, I became governor by the grace of God, by the grace of Dr. Peter Odili too, and the people of Rivers State and the judiciary, because, at the end of the day, the judiciary pronounced me governor. The question again is, did you perform? Of course I did.

You would say you performed, wouldn’t you? I mean, you’re not going to say you didn’t perform?

I’m prepared to ask you to open your phone and call people from Rivers State. People are building flyovers here and making noise. I built six flyovers, they are there. And I didn’t make noise. I didn’t call the president to come and commission. I didn’t make noise. I built primary schools also. Let any other governor who has built more primary schools come forward in Rivers State.

I built secondary schools that people were calling universities, two children per room in those schools. And I got an agency in India to come and manage those schools. So they brought science teachers from India and arts teachers from Nigeria.

And what’s happened to them now?

Abandoned! Vandalized. That’s why I don’t go to Rivers State because it gives you mental disorder. Within that period, we tried to build a new city. We had finished with 24-hour power supply, it was abandoned and vandalized. So, unless you don’t give me an assignment, I will deliver. Let’s go to the same appointment. I began and completed the railway from Lagos to Ibadan. I began and completed the Lekki Deep Seaport. Go to Kano, that’s an inland dry port in Kano that I completed and I told the owner of the inland dry port that he must build a primary and secondary school there to enable these children that run after us when we come, go to school free of charge, and he did that.

I commenced the construction of Kano-Kaduna Railway, I completed Kaduna to Abuja, which was started by President Goodluck Jonathan. I started the Kano-Maradi Railway, and it’s going on. So don’t give me an assignment, because I will discharge it responsibly. I won’t go about abusing people. The current politicians are not ashamed, they don’t bother about their name or their character. Let me tell you what my second son tells me because we usually have conversations as a family. If you make, do something that is wrong, he would tell me “dad, you’re not the only Amaechi, I am too. If you do something that rubs off on the name Amaechi, then it affects all of us.

But if you do something against your Rotimi, I don’t mind that but unfortunately, you are not just Rotimi, you are Rotimi Amaechi, and there are so many of us who bear the name Amaechi”. For that reason, every member of my family is taught how to behave, so that we don’t mess up the name Amaechi. Most people don’t care about their name. They don’t care about their character. I wonder whether they don’t think their children should be ashamed of themselves.

Have you reflected on the way that you have changed, as well as the way Nigeria, the country you grew up in, has also changed?

A lot of things have changed in the country. Have I changed? Good or bad? Are we moving from bad to worse in some areas? The only thing I can tell you now is that looking at the way Nigeria had run elections, even though as cruel as the Option A4 was under Babangida, it led us forward. At least, there was a lot of transparency and you were sure of what was going on. Then we came back to meet people like Maurice Iwu and others and the current one, Yakubu Mahmood, and things got worse. So you don’t know whether to say we are progressing or we are regressing.

Why can’t Nigeria as a country have electoral reform? So you begin to wonder, are we moving forward? The answer I get in my head is, in some areas, yes, in other areas, no. The”e’s a state capture using the electoral institution as a machine. And should that be? Honestly, ask yourself the question.

Do you mean the kind of electoral reform that would give confidence to Nigerians and the opposition is not taking place?

I wish the National Assembly could amend the Constitution and allow Jega to remain there until we are able to get electoral reform right. Because where there is no electoral reform, then there has to be a man of conscience. And Jega was a man of conscience. So, yes, the process was not what you think you can manage but can be managed in such a way that all the parties will feel this was transparent. That’s what happened in 2015. Nobody gave us a chance. I doubt even Jega gave us a chance but because the process was transparent, the people’s votes mattered.

And that’s what’s important, isn’t it?

Yes, currently, if I were the current INEC chairman, I would protect my name.

He may not be there in 2027…

It doesn’t matter. Already he’s stopping parties from being registered. So already, INEC has taken sides. INEC is no longer the umpire.

But in fairness to him, he’s put forward a considerable number of reforms, though…

To whose advantage? First, there has to be parties to compete for that election you’re putting that number of reforms. So when there are no parties to compete for those positions, then what importance is that reform?

But are you talking about the party that you’re discussing in this opposition coalition, like a new party?

Whether it is new or old, whatever, the most important thing is that the Electoral Act allows you to register a political party. One thing funny about the current government is that they don’t even obey laws, they don’t obey the Constitution.

Are they stopping you from registering?

Of course yes. They’re not allowing the opposition to register political parties. But again, you’re taking me to politics. I’ve told you I don’t want to discuss politics.

Alright. You’ve been Speaker of a state Assembly, governor of a state, federal Minister, and you’ve attempted to be president. Do you think you’re a long way from ever becoming president? Is that what’s left for you to do in terms of your political ambition?

No comments.

You were just 34 years old when you became the Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly. How much did that break new grounds for you?

I was 34 when I became Speaker. The process was a bit more transparent than you have now. If you lost the election and you went to court, you were assured that the court was a bit more transparent, and you could come out there getting a verdict that you go home satisfied. So as young as I was, I got elected, and I became the Speaker, and the judiciary was given their due respect. Then I had to discharge my responsibilities for the number of years I was supposed to – eight years.

And we had an opposition party, APP, and they gave us run for our money, and it wasn’t easy to manage them. But you had to do everything to ensure that both the party in power and the opposition party work together to produce a better result for the state. Then I got elected as governor at the age of 42.

Was there any ideological urgency to your joining politics as a young man? Did you feel that there was something perhaps transformative that you needed to do? Or were you attracted to the power and the fame of it all, or a mixture of all of them?

I just mentioned to you here now that I ran a free education program in Rivers State. In fact, I was careful not to make it compulsory. What I wanted to do was a free and compulsory education. But then they will ask you about the funds, but, again, we’re doing free education. So we ran education in such a way that private schools began to close down, because parents were taking their children away from private schools to government schools.

Now, how many do you have in government school? When I came, it was 150 children per class. I reduced it to 25, or 30 maximum. We expanded by building more schools and more classrooms. And then we also, like I said earlier, constructed new secondary schools, of which you had 1,000 students per school. You had two children per room and 25 per class.

We were sure of what we wanted to do. These are things that then, as I usually tell people, you need to be a member of the House to be a governor because by the time you travel out and see what others are doing… For instance, the private schools that I built in Rivers State, I copied it from the ones that I saw in Australia. When I saw it, it was magnificent. And then I had to build them. And I made sure that every community had one primary school or the other. I then built primary health care centers, employing another set of 400 doctors, bought 600 cars for the 600 doctors we had. I met just 200 doctors in the Employment of state. I had to hire 400 doctors more. The question to ask is, are they still there? And for those 600 doctors that were in the employment of the state government, I bought 600 cars for them. The ones in the rural areas, I built houses for them to live in, because they were health centers. In each health center, you had a house for the nurses, and you had one for the doctor.

So you don’t think they’re still there?

I wish you can take a tour. I’m willing to raise the funds for you to take the tour.

So why do you think it’s no longer there?

I built a stadium, not just a stadium, I built a sports village. It’s abandoned, it’s not in use. The medical school in the Rivers State University of Science and Technology gave me an award and I dedicated the award to Governor Wike. And nobody asked me why. And I said, the reason why I dedicated that award to Governor Wike is because he never abolished the medical school which I established. But I built a mother and child hospital, it was abandoned. I completed it, it’s remaining just furnishing but it’s abandoned till today. And I partnered NDDC to build that mother and child hospital. We built an orthopedic hospital. NDDC did that. It’s abandoned till today.

Was it Wike who abandoned?

I don’t know. All I know is that he’s the person in government. So the question to ask is, what’s all that noise about?

Recently your message have been strongly against the APC and its presidential leadership, a party you helped to build and which you powered to an unprecedented victory in 2015 as the director general of its presidential campaign. What is it that has impacted this new polemic from you against the APC? Why have you explicitly veered away from your support for the party?

You know, I’ll start the answer with just saying that I’m grateful to Buhari for the opportunity to be the director general of the campaign. He also offered me the opportunity of being a minister, where I discharged my responsibility in the Ministry of Transport. But outside that, I don’t want to talk about the APC or the opposition alliance because I’m not the leader of the opposition alliance, so I don’t want to talk about the opposition. There’s a saying in my village that if the mouth goes to war first, when the leg comes, they will capture the leg.

With the electioneering for 2027 already beginning, analysts say that for the opposition, the challenge is clear. It’s got to be a merger or burst. If they don’t form an alliance, Tinubu will be left odds-on to win in 2027. Do you agree?

You know, you’re a typical Nigerian. Nigerians don’t care about anything. What do I mean by that? You are not even addressing the fact that before we can even start, the INEC Chairman has ruled out the registration of a new party. So supposing we come together and we have no party? You should first address that and stop addressing whether there’s a coalition or not.

But there are alternatives. I mean, the SDP, ADC have been mooted…

Okay, what is wrong with mooting a new party?

I don’t know.

Exactly, so why are you suggesting ADC, SDP, and all that?

Because that’s an alternative.

No, no. You see, you must ask people to keep to the law. You can’t be Chairman of INEC if you won’t obey the law. It’s like National Assembly calling for a voice vote for a total majority. How do you do that? Why didn’t people go to court? Because at the end of the day, nobody knows what will happen in court.

What are your thoughts on the state of emergency in Rivers State?

I’ve made that public a long time. I’ve said to you that the president was not right. In fact, if there’s any way I’m disappointed at Fagbemi, okay, he was my lawyer, so we don’t need to talk about him. You can say I’m a young lawyer but the Constitution does not give the president the power to suspend any governor. What it just means is that if anybody becomes president, they can wake up and remove any state governor. No, you must go by the law. That’s why it’s called the rule of law.

But how come that is being allowed to…

You and I are the problem of the country. It’s not the president. Did you hear about what happened in South Korea? This evening I was watching Al-Jazeera and they were showing me resistance in Bangladesh. How the Prime Minister, Hasina was also removed in Bangladesh by the people. But you, you’re even afraid to go out. If they shoot knock-out here, you will be the first to run out. Let me repeat what I said when I was a governor. When this militancy started and they felt, “oh, it was Rivers State”, I said, ‘Be careful. This militancy could be found in every part of the country because it has to do with poverty’. You know, when people ask me why did you choose the topic, ‘weaponization of poverty’, I said, “Indeed, you know, one problem everybody has is that nobody has bothered to listen. Nobody said it’s only this government that is weaponizing poverty”.

And that’s why I go with El-Rufai who said politicians have weaponized poverty. It’s unintended. As they are stealing money, they don’t know that the more they steal from the people, the more they impoverish the people. That’s how they are weaponizing poverty. But if they don’t steal money, and that money is deployed…and that’s why I ask the question, where’s the money the president saved from the removal of fuel subsidy?

The president removed the subsidy on oil and electricity, where’s the money? It got a time oil subsidy got to N8 trillion. If you put N8 trillion in the economy, everybody will feel the impact. Let me also ask you, do we need the Coastal Road in that manner it was awarded? Yes, the South-South needs the road but fix the East West Road. Who’s collecting the subsidy money? The president needs to tell us.

Which ethnic group do you belong to?

I’m an Ikwerre man. There is no controversy about it because you are first and foremost an Ikwerre man before you become an Igbo man. If you ask an Ikwerre man “who you are”, he will say “I’m an Ikwerre man”.

Is an Ikwerre man an Igbo man? There are divergent views. In all honesty, majority will say no. There’s a very tiny minority that accepts they are Igbo which includes me. And why do I think that position is political? And when I said political, it’s not to win Igbo votes. I didn’t like the way the Igbo were being treated at a particular point in time and, in protest against that treatment, I began to wear the ‘Isi Agu’ Igbo traditional wear with red cap, asking Nigeria to address their problems. Again, I made it public that I’m an Igbo man in protest. (Sunday Vanguard)