Nobody can push me out of PDP, says Amaechi.
On July 26, 2013 at 12:30 am in News By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor.
Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State yesterday said he is remaining in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP affirming that purveyors of his desperation for higher office had no right to bring down the country because of their assumptions. Speaking on a BBC television interview, Hardtalk,
Amaechi asserted that problems between him and the president were essentially fanned by those in the presidency bent on profiting from a crisis. In the 25-minute interview anchored by Shaun Ley, Amaechi painted a triangle of insecurity, poverty and
unemployment as the major problems of the country which the political class must address. He said the qualification of leadership must not be ethnicised as he called for a visionary leader. While pleading for the speedy passage of the
Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB as a way of addressing decreasing investment by multinational oil corporations, Amaechi nevertheless called for the
abrogation of the office of minister of petroleum or reduction of the powers of the minister under the PIB.
Amaechi also restated his opposition to the
administration’s amnesty programme which he said
partially rewards criminality and has fanned the
embers of criminality in other parts of the country. Challenged that his focus has been on ascending to
higher office of vice-president, he said: “That has not
been my focus. My focus has been mainly on
developments. We have disagreements on policies,
this is the transition period, we have disagreements
on the issue of transition and there are a lot of assumptions here and there by different persons
about what they think or assume my ambitions are.” Watch video here “Let us assume that my ambition exists, nobody has
the right to bring down the state because my ambition
exists. First and foremost everybody should allow
2015 for 2015 is a bit too early.” Charging stakeholders to allow the president do his
job of presiding over the country, the governor said: “I want everybody to allow Mr. president to preside
over the country for which he has been elected and I
support that and I want everybody to allow Mr.
President to preside over the country for the interest
of the country.” Challenged that he had raised charges of impunity
against the president in the past, he sharply drew
back saying: “I didn’t say the president, I said the people around
him.” When asked whether he was told not to run against
Governor Jonah Jang who the interviewer described
as the oldest politician in the NGF, Amaechi replied: ”Nobody told me not to run. Nobody told me not to
run.” But on whether he informed the president he
was going to run for the NGF chair, he said: ”There is no law that requires me to tell him that I
am going to run. I didn’t need to. If the journalists in Britain have an
association and you belong to the association would
the prime minister tell you to run or not to run for the
public office?” he asked. “That is the freedom we are looking for in the
Nigeria Governors Forum, I didn’t need to go to the
president and say Mr. President I want to run for the
office of the chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum.
I didn’t need to do that. “And I didn’t do that and he in turn didn’t call me
to say don’t run, ‘I heard you are going to run.’
So, I ran and I didn’t see the president on the ballot.
The person I saw on the ballot was Jonah Jang.” Challenged on the outcome of the vote and on
whether he beat Jang, he quipped: ”I didn’t say
that I beat him, the result was clear.” On his continuing membership of the PDP and on
whether he would leave the PDP, Amaechi affirmed:
”I am going no where. We will all be in PDP.” Told that he was sticking to PDP because the party is
the country’s dominant party and the only platform
to the presidency or other high office, he is accused of
aspiring to, he said: ”Let’s assume that I remain in
PDP and that I am running for the office of vice-
president, will my leaving PDP not enhance that ambition? “Don’t forget that it is assumed that the president
wants to run in PDP and if PDP wants him to run and I
remain in PDP, it then means that I have no ambition. “Or those who are assuming that I have ambition
would be making a lot of mistakes. Because the place
to pursue that ambition would be on an alternative
party but the reason for remaining in PDP is because
nobody can chase me out of PDP. I am a member of
PDP and I love to be a member of PDP.” Amaechi blamed the tension in the country on 2015
politics. “The point is that we are getting close to transition
and politics is one of the greatest businesses in
Nigeria and a lot of those whose interests appear to
be threatened have come up now to pursue their very
private interests and as governor of Rivers State my
focus is not on that. “My focus is to pursue the goals for which I have
been elected.” On the PIB, he said: “America produces oil but they have no minister for
petroleum, if you look at the PIB what we are saying
is that either the power of the minister should either
be reduced or that there is no need for a minister.
Privatize the oil industry so that people can do their
business and pay the government for the resources they need to pay.” While expressing his rejection of the amnesty
programme which he said rewards and inspires
criminality, he said the progamme was also not
coordinated with some other welfare schemes
directed at the Niger Delta region. “I have never supported amnesty, the whole
country knows that. My position about the amnesty is
I have always believed that when criminals commit
crime they should be prosecuted and my position is
that if you don’t prosecute them, then you will have
others in other regions asking for amnesty, and right now you know there are others asking for
amnesty.” While he admitted that the amnesty programme
helped to curb criminality in the region, he added that
social policing and physical policing introduced by his
administration had curbed criminality before the
advent of the amnesty programme. “Instead of amnesty enforce law and order, once
you curb impunity, criminals will know that they
can’t commit crime anyhow. It is a social welfare
programme that is not sustainable. What is
sustainable is a programme that introduces income
earning, amnesty, yes it has introduced some pilots, but it is not enough.”
www.vanguardngr.com/2013/07/nobody-can-push-me-out-of-pdp-says-amaechi/

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Good politician,clap for yoursef !nobody is pushing you out of PDP rather you chose a very wrong method in actualizing your ambition.

samuelkaykay: Good politician,clap for yoursef !nobody is pushing you out of PDP rather you chose a very wrong method in actualizing your ambition.

how is his method wrong? And which method did he choose?