Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi
Did you reach any agreement with the Federal Government before your aircraft was released?
There was nothing like that. I didn’t even see any Federal Government official; we didn’t even have any meeting. I just called one person. It was not this plane they were interested in releasing, but the helicopters. I said I wanted to sell the helicopters and the person I called offered to talk to the President to seek the approval for the helicopters and they got the approval.
And in the course of getting approval for the helicopters, they got approval for the plane to be released. There was no negotiation, no interface or whatsoever other than the telephone conversation. So, what is all this rumour that I’m going to the Peoples Democratic Party? I have finished with the PDP.
The position of your party on the Ekiti State governorship election is a bit confusing. While the incumbent governor has conceded defeat and congratulated his opponent, some APC leaders are saying they will go to court…
They didn’t say they would go to court on the election. It was Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who said the election is beyond just the voting; that the process of election is part of an election. It is the issue of military intervention, which is what the PDP intends to use for the 2015 elections – to employ military men as part of the electioneering process – so, you would be having an unfair election, where APC supporters would be chased away by the military. That is why I said what we have is a diarchy and not a democracy – government by both the military and the civilian.
Was there military intervention?
Look at Ekiti, they stopped APC governors from coming in; leaders of the APC were arrested. A senator’s father was beaten up and other things happened. That is military intervention; people would be scared to come out because they don’t know what the military would do.
But there was heavy military presence in Edo State during the last governorship election in the state.
I wasn’t in Edo State. The PDP and the APC didn’t complain. But this one, I was there.
Initially, during the Edo governorship election, Governor Adams Oshiomhole complained of heavy military presence but when the election went in his way, the story changed.
I am not in the position to answer that question because in this case, it was very glaring that APC members were arrested. Why are people pretending? There was one instance where Channels Television showed live about 20 persons that were carried away. And Channels TV said they didn’t know the reason why the military took them away when they came to vote. Channels TV showed it live and I watched it.
An online news portal quoted you as saying how bitter you were after the APC national convention. Were you betrayed by your party’s national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu?
That is total fabrication. The convention ended around 5am and by 6am, I was at the airport looking for a ticket to go to the UK. So, when was the interview? I played a prominent role at the APC convention. I was part of the process through which the man (John Odigie-Oyegun) emerged. I was among those making peace, going to people and begging people that we should allow peace because we want to make sure that we have a platform to confront the PDP. So, how did this interview take place? I was in the UK.
So you were not bitter that your candidate did not emerge as the national chairman at the convention?
No, I asked my candidate to step down. We were in a meeting from Thursday night till 5am on Friday and I woke up by 6am to continue my appeal to people not to confront the party; that we should listen to the party and get a structure. I was the person and even Asiwaju was resting in his place when I was going round.
There is also an insinuation that you were planning to run with Aminu Tambuwal?
There was nothing like that. These are fabrications.
Why did you ask your candidate at the APC convention to step down?
I asked my candidate to step down because I had given my commitment to Asiwaju that I would support whichever candidate he supported. And the reason I gave him my commitment was because I had said to him that we needed to look at this issue of being a Muslim party. So, we first needed to get a new chairman and he has to be a Christian. So, he said to me, “Okay, I have brought a Christian in accordance to what you said the day we were negotiating things. Then, why are you now asking somebody to run against the person based on the promise you made to me?” And I like to keep promises.
So, you made your promise to Asiwaju and not the party?
Asiwaju is not the party. Asiwaju may have an interest in supporting a particular candidate just like other people will have their own candidate. There was Timipre Sylva supported by other persons. Don’t forget that Sylva ran up till the convention ground but when Asiwaju had convinced some governors and other people, he saw what was going on and said I hereby step down.
Maybe he didn’t want his name to be announced at the podium to have been beaten. But for me, don’t forget that I said I didn’t campaign to anybody about Sam Jaja or anybody. I only said if my promise was not called to question, which had to do with my integrity, probably I would have supported openly.
Another election will hold in Osun in a few weeks, what is your party doing to avert disaster?
You will help us to tell the President to keep the soldiers in his house. All of us are part of the problem of Nigeria. The President impounded newspapers and journalists did not do anything. In other countries, they would have protested on the streets. We are talking to him that there is need for him to stop using soldiers to conduct election.
Does it mean your party is afraid it may lose Osun?
How can we lose Osun? Say something else.
Given the allegation of the militarisation of the Ekiti election, what do you think is the proper security measure for election?
The law says use police. Are you saying there are no soldiers in Borno?
But there is Boko Haram in Borno.
That is the point I am making. So, it is not necessarily the presence of soldiers that will stop violence. After all, if the presence of soldiers could stop violence, by now Borno State should be the citadel of joy and happiness where people would be dancing. There are so many soldiers in Borno – so many military equipment and hardware, yet they are still bombings in Maiduguri. There are many soldiers in Abuja and the Emmab Plaza is a place you will think is very secure but it was bombed recently. So, police are enough.
Are you saying police would be enough in Nigeria’s circumstance?
Are you going to war? I think in the current security situation, police are enough for security measure during election.
With the experience you have had in your state, would you advocate state police?
It can’t be worse, they will checkmate each other. The President will stop using the police or army against those that are not in his party because there would be balance of forces in the country. Nobody wants a state police if the national police would be fair to everybody. There are two reasons for state police. First is that the national police is not properly equipped to check crime. So, if you equipped them properly and make them independent, then you don’t need the state police. The reason for the state police is the failure of the national police. And with the personalisation of national police, it becomes the private army of the President.
It is worse in this period where it is not only the private army of the President; it is the private army of the PDP. So, when people criticise others, they should institutionalise the police and the military. If they are not answerable and they would not obey illegal orders, then we would support everybody. If we have a statesman President, who will not use the police, they would be in support of everybody.
Are you impressed with yourself this second term because you seem to have been distracted by politics?
A lot of people need to wait. What you’re used to is the PDP propaganda machine and if you know me very well, I hate propaganda. I could actually put about N100m to N300m to the press to start propaganda and, meanwhile, I am doing nothing on the ground. There was a time we were responding but it got to a point, we stopped. The reason I stopped was because we started inaugurating primary schools. In my first tenure, we had only 75 primary schools. We are trying to get children into 300 but it is expensive to furnish. ICT alone is N34m per school, so 100 schools is N3.4bn. So, we say let us raise about N10bn plus to fund 300 schools and it is not easy.
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