Rivers State Governor, Chibuike Amaechi, has dared the state's governor-elect,
Chief Nyesom Wike, to probe him to confirm if he was corrupt, adding that he
ran a transparent and accountable administration and is not afraid of being
probed by the incoming administration.
Amaechi spoke on
Tuesday in Port Harcourt at the public lecture to mark his 50th birthday
anniversary celebration.
His said: “I have been
listening to Mr. Nyesom Wike and I have been trying not to reply him. He has
been accusing me of corruption and I have been trying to keep quiet over the
issue of corruption. A thief cannot call me corrupt. The first lesson he needs
to learn is that he was Chief of Staff to my government. If I have no records,
I have records on him.
“One way we succeeded
in moving this state forward was that we refused to probe Dr. Peter Odili's
government despite the pressure on me to probe Dr. Odili's government, because
at the end of the day, they will not ask me the number of persons I probed, but
what I did while in government.
“God did not put me to
shame. I will be leaving office as Rivers governor very proud. President
Goodluck Jonathan and his wife (Dame Patience); Nyesom Wike, soldiers and
police could not remove me from office.
“When I pray, in front
of me all the time is God. That is why I am always victorious. If you want to
fight me, you must first defeat God, which is impossible. Nobody can overcome
God. I have won already.”
He said Wike’s
comments that he would probe his (Amaechi’s) administration was a ploy to
negotiate a soft-landing for the incoming administration.
“Why Nyesom Wike is
talking the way he is talking is that they are looking for us to come and
negotiate with them so that they can illegally stay in office. They cannot stay
like that. We are already in court (tribunal).
“Why did they go to
court to get an injunction against the panel we set up to investigate the deaths
of Nigerians who were killed on election days? Why should Wike sponsor the
court case? A judge gave them an ex parte order that the panel should not sit.
“Luckily, we went to
court and asked the court to vacate the order, to allow the members of the panel
to sit. If you read the panel's report, you will cry for us,” he said.
He expressed delight
that the administration of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari would put an end to
impunity in all sectors of the economy.
Amaechi said: “One
thing going for you is that the government of Gen. Buhari will not allow
impunity anymore. A month to the general election, they arrested all prominent
APC members in Rivers State.
“APC's agent in INEC's
office (state headquarters in Port Harcourt) was also arrested as he was coming
out of INEC's office and detained for two weeks for no offence. When we won the
presidential election, they released him. He was not charged to court.”
On the absence of a
chief judge in the state and closure of the judiciary, he said: “They tried to appoint
an administrative chief judge (Justice Daisy Okocha, who is very close to Wike)
for the Rivers State judiciary. There is nothing like an administrative chief
judge in Nigeria's Constitution. So you must be prepared; the fight/war is not
over.
“They (Wike and his
allies) have won the battle, but the war is on, till after May 29. We must be
steadfast. We must take our facts to the court. We must convince Nigerians that
there was no election in Rivers State.”
Thisday
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