The bitter political fight between Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, and his former close associate and now Rivers State Governor, NyesomWike, rumbles on. In recent newspaper interviews Wike had dismissed his predecessor’s two terms in office as a wasted period. He said he was a reluctant entrant into the gubernatorial contest and further claimed that Amaechi never wanted him to be a minister. In this interview with FESTUS ERIYE, the minister hits back with his own account of how the erstwhile close relationship between the two men transformed into a bitter feud. He speaks about his legacy as governor, his current challenges as a minister and why Nigerians shouldn’t crucify the APC government over the ongoing national economic crisis.

YOU have been in office as Minister of Transportation for about a year and three months. What are the challenges and what would you consider as your achievements?

I don’t know about achievements but I know about challenges. There are challenges and the greatest is how to get the economy moving – the transport sector forward – because a huge chunk of the economy depends on the transport sector. Even those who tra nsport crude by pipe will still need the transport sector and we have all sorts of ideas that we want to implement but basically there are no funds. When I tell people that we met recession, they would say how? I tell them that recession does not start in a day. It could not have happened in our first one year in office if the factors were not there before we came in – but the factors were huge. If you had listened carefully, I had said as chairman of the Governors’ Forum, the first disagreement I had with former President Goodluck Jonathan was on funds that the Presidency couldn’t account for. There wasn’t any specific reason why we were fighting other than my insistence on good governance.

The first battle between Dr. Goodluck Jonathan and i… How much did former President Olusegun Obasanjo leave behind …about $68 billion in the Excess Crude Account, not in the foreign reserve and then we fell into the economic crisis we had in 2008. To be able to battle with that economic crisis, late President UmaruYar’Adua borrowed quite a lot of money from the Excess Crude Account. He was taking $1 billion every month that was shared among federal, states and local governments to augment the budget and ensure that we didn’t feel the impact of that economic crisis.

We came out of that economic crisis by 2009 or so, the oil price bounced back to about $110, $150. By that time, Yar’Adua had spent the money to $48 billion. So, Goodluck Jonathan inherited the Excess Crude Account, inherited an untouched foreign reserve and also inherited increase in price of oil.


The contract for railway construction from Lagos to Kanowas awarded at $8.7 billion by the Obasanjo administration and you had an excess crude account of about $48 billion. All he would have done was to take $8 billion from the $48billion and he would have done the Lagos-Kano railway project. Former President Jonathan awarded the contract for the Lagos-Calabar railway project for $11.9 billion before this government brought it down to $11.1 billion. Let us even go back to $11.9 billion; from that $48 billion, you can still take another $11.9 billion. You would have funded the Lagos-Kano and the Lagos-Calabar railway project.

So, here now as Minister for Transportation, I am battling on how to raise funds from China for these same rail projects, and like I said, they have just released $1.5 billion for the Lagos-Ibadan railway project. The most difficult aspect is the funding and security. Most people don’t know that NIMASA is in charge of water security in the coastal areas and it is huge. The coastal area is essentially the Niger Delta. So, it is a huge problem but we are confronting the challenges and trying to find solution to the problems as we approach them.

You got into a bit of hot water with the Senate over the issue of funding some rail projects with loans and they said that you were not telling the truth…

(Cuts in) As a journalist, what do you think is the truth? As much as possible, I have huge respect for the National Assembly. I was once in the legislative arm of government and I wouldn’t want to get into confrontation with the National Assembly.

It is a fact that the Federal government submitted a request for $30 billion borrowing plan, it is a fact that it was rejected, it is a fact that $1.5 billion of the Lagos-Ibadan railway project was in it. That was what I said in Kwara and I told the people of Kwara that they should beg the National Assembly to please approve it. So, what are they disputing?

Once they pass the borrowing plan, we will start work because it is very embarrassing that the Chinese government has approved. We cannot travel to China to sign because the National Assembly is yet to approve the borrowing plan. One reason why China quickly approved it was because we told them that we didn’t want the rainy season to meet us before we start the project.I don’t think I insulted or lied against the National Assembly, all I did was to repeat the facts as they happened. I told my (media) people not to reply the National Assembly because it is an institution and you don’t joke with such an institution.

Which of the railway projects will come up this year?


If the National Assembly approves the borrowing plan and I hope they will, then the Lagos-Ibadan rail line will start. In fact, ordinarily, we expect to start this February or first week in March. I hope that the National Assembly will approve it and we expect that we start early in March.

Many Nigerians wonder what the Federal government is doingrecovered looted funds?

How much is it? There is no money that they recovered that has not been announced. Everyone they get, they announce and you should be able to tabulate from that point.

One of the mistakes I made as a governor was that I listened to Rivers people who said I shouldn’t take loans because they hate their governor borrowing money. Even what I borrowed, I paid off almost everything.And I was not borrowing as thecurrent governor is borrowing now. I was borrowing to execute projects. If you asked anyone who was in my administration in Rivers State, he/she would tell you that we suffered in the last six months because we could have told the new government to pay.

So, the federal government has to borrow to come out of the current economic crisis we are in. One person that does not like to borrow is the President, he believes we can manage our way through. The reality is that the President also understands that people need to come out of recession and that is why he agreed to submit the $30 billion borrowing plan. These loans are tied to specific projects and when the money comes, it won’t come to the Ministry of Transportation, there will be an account where they will be paying the contractors. So, you can see the discipline by the President. Unlike before, the loan will be provided but it is the federal government that will allocate to projects. But these are loans for specific projects and imagine how the economy would look like. Just imagine $30 billion pumped into the economy, you and I would no longer be talking about recession because it will generate so much economic activities, so much jobs etc. It will revolve around the economy and create a lot of jobs, that is our argument but like I said, I make sure that my ministry doesn’t go into any dispute with the National Assembly.

Still on the borrowing plan, many people are skeptical about the huge amount of money government wants to borrow.

The infrastructure gap is huge and as I said, this loan is not going to any ministry or minister’s pocket. I just told you that by the time we were getting huge money from crude, we didn’t need to borrow money because we had money to do these rails. Now, one of the things that can bring us out of recession is construction. And since we don’t have money we have to borrow. If you review the borrowing plan, they are all tied to specific projects.

One controversial issue has been the closure of the Abuja airport. Some experts say you don’t have to shut down that airport to do what you need to do. Foreign airlines have been particularly difficult about that shutdown. Have you made any progress getting them to accept your plan?

Who are the experts? The truth is that the federal government does not want to close that airport; the pain we will feel for closing the airport is unimagined.

How do you close an airport in the seat of power? The president is also compelled to go to Kaduna to fly out. When people say these things, it is as if we are having fun closing the airport. That is not our intention. The crisis you have at the Abuja airport is that the runway has lasted for 34 years and it is supposed to last for 20 years. What these so-called experts are telling you is that they think we are repairing the runway. We are not, we are building a new runway because the foundation has given up; you cannot repair it anymore.

If it is to overlay the runway, we will be glad to do that but if you overlay it, it won’t last and we don’t want to lose any life. It could be anybody, it could be me because I use the airport too. We are also confronted with the reality that people may die if we don’t shutdown this airport and rebuild the runway. I think Nigerians should be patient and give us some time. One government that is cautious and committed to Nigerians is our government.

So are you meeting the foreign airlines midway?

The Minister of State for Aviation has held series of stakeholders meetings. He has spoken with them on the challenges that we have and the arrangements we have put on ground to assist them in Kaduna including security, alternative mode of transportation, putting more soldiers and policemen on the road and all that.

The Rivers State Governor, NyesomWike, granted an interview recently where he made some critical remarks about your tenure as governor and what he inherited. He said he inherited a mess and that some of the projects you left behind were bogus in particular the school projects. He alleged that you built hospitals with no doctors in them. How do you react to that?

A governor should not tell lies, but when you make a child a governor then you expect a reverse of the protocols of governance. There is a saying in my village that if you give a child something he can’t carry, he would falter and falter. The hospitals I built are still being used; he tried to change the name of one of the hospitals I built inside the Rivers State University of Science and Technology. He lied. I met 200 doctors when I came in as governor, I employed 400 more. He even lied that I owed salaries for six months. Let anybody in the state come out to say I did not start paying April salary before I left in May 2015.
more at http://www.akelicious.com/2017/02/amaechi-wike-schemed-to-be-governor.html

Amaechi d great. God continue to bless u.

In all he is saying he can't do anything if his plan to borrow is not approved.
Same way i can say I'll be like Dangote if i can borrow billions of dollars.
A govt that only sees cheap money as the way out is dumb!

And so ? Is there any crime in that ? It his right. The people has given him the privileges.