The outspoken governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, has said God used him to make Rotimi Amaechi the state governor in 2007, claiming that Amaechi said he was next in his life after God.
Wike said this in an interview with BBC Pidgin in Port Harcourt, the state capital.
The governor said the minister had stated in a church that he (Wike) came next in his life after God and told him to freely choose any position in his government having played a key role in the Amaechi’s emergence as governor.
Wike further said Amaechi wanted to appoint him as commissioner, but that he rejected it to take the position of Chief of Staff.
He said, “I was not close to Amaechi. We were just in the same party and in politics everybody has an ambition. He has his own. I don’t regret that as of that time, we preferred him to be governor. We fought it and God crowned our efforts and he became a governor.
“He is in APC and I am in PDP. So don’t expect me to support what he is doing in APC. He said I was his employee. What he said was not good. God used me to make him the governor. I will give you a tape where Amaechi spoke in church saying after God, I came next. But when he spoke the other day, he said I was his employee. No problem, but an employee that dealt with him here (Rivers State).”
The governor said he had never personally accused his predecessor of corruption, instead a judicial commission of inquiry in the state had indicted the minister for the alleged misappropriation of $308m realised from the sale of the Rivers State assets.
He also explained that the judicial commission indicted the Amaechi-led administration for allegedly wasting N54bn on the abandoned 1.4 kilometer monorail project.
According to him, the minister had challenged his indictment in both Federal High Court and Court of Appeal, and lost the case.
