Former governor of Rivers State and head of the Muhammadu Buhari presidential campaign, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has held separate meetings with the Senate President, Bukola Saraki and the senate Minority Leader, Godswill Akpabio over his upcoming screening by the senate.
Amaechi, who is one of 21 individuals on the ministerial list recently sent to the senate by President Buhari, was previously close to the two men but they have since fallen out.
Amaechi and Akpabio were the two key southern leaders of the PDP before the former left the party for the APC along with five other governors who had formed the nPDP. Amaechi’s relationship with Saraki also ruptured after he peeled away from the group during the latter’s struggle for the senate presidency.
A source at the weekend told CITYVOICE that the former Rivers governor reached out to Saraki during the week, telling him of his desire to have a meeting to discuss the impending screening of ministerial nominees. Saraki agreed to the meeting and invited the three senators from Rivers State, who are members of the opposition PDP, along. During the meeting, Amaechi spoke of his long relationship with the men and his desire for the men to support him during the screening.
Saraki reportedly replied that he had nothing personally against any of the nominees, Amaechi included and advised that the latter should reach out to senators from the south-south, especially his colleagues from Rivers State. Senator Abiye Sekibo, however, reportedly told Amaechi that he does not enjoy the support of senators from Rivers State. He also asked the nominee to go and clear his name before the panel of inquiry set up the state government to probe the activities of the Amaechi government.
The panel, which recently concluded its sitting in Port Harcourt, has uncovered what it said was fraud running into hundreds of billions of naira allegedly perpetrated by agents of the Amaechi administration. The state government has also stated its desire to pursue a criminal investigation of the former governor.
Amaechi later met with Akpabio, who is the leader of the PDP caucus in the senate. During the meeting, our source said, the former Akwa Ibom State governor explained that the mood towards Amaechi is foul, but advised that they both worked on them over the week so that there would be no unpleasantness during the screening.
It was also gathered that the national APC spokesman, Alhaji Lai Mohammed also met with Saraki during the week to seek his support. Mohammed, is the ministerial nominee from Kwara State, but the two men belonged to opposing factions within the APC.
However, during the meeting, Saraki promised Mohammed his support and that of the two other senators from Kwara. He, however, advised the nominee to reach out to prominent traditional rulers in Kwara to intimate them of his nomination. “Although Lai Mohammed is from Kwara, the feeling among our people is that he is remote from the politics of the state.
There is, therefore, a sense of injustice that he is the one to represent the state in the federal cabinet. The senate president felt Mohammed needs to reassure the people of the state that he would work for their interest and not for other interests outside the state,” a source familiar with the meeting said.
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