Don’t allow crack in Governors Forum, Amaechi tells incoming govs

Outgoing Governor
Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State has advised incoming
governors to ensure that there was no crack in the
Governors’ Forum, saying that it was the division in
their midst that resulted in the alleged looting of public
funds at the centre.

Amaechi, yesterday, at a special Mass to mark his
50th birthday at the Corpus Christi Cathedral, Catholic
Church, Port Harcourt, said the crack they witnessed
in their forum as governors made it relatively difficult
for them to confront the Federal Government over
issues they were not clear about.

Amaechi @50: From left; Rivers State Governor,
Chibuike Amaechi; his wife, Dame Judith Amaechi
and National Chairman of APC, John Oyegun at the
thanksgiving Mass for the celebration of 50th Birthday
Anniversary of Governor Amaechi at Corpus Christi
Cathedral, Port Harcourt, yesterday.

“Don’t let anybody break the Nigeria Governors
Forum. It was when the Governors Forum was
broken that money got missing,” he said.
Amaechi who expressed gratitude to God for turning
50, said he had always feared that he might not get to
the golden age. According to him, he was haunted by
similar fear years ago that he was not going to clock
40. He said the fear stemmed from his political
activism, saying some others who took similar steps in
the country were cut short in their prime.

“I was so scared that I would not live up to 40 years,
same with 50. I believed that the struggle to change
Nigeria would consume me before I clock 50. People
reminded me of some persons (names withheld) in the
past. I have so many reasons to thank God,” he said.
He recalled how he had been betrayed by political
friends in the past, stressing that betrayal was not
strange to him. He lauded his loyalists in the state
House of Assembly who stood by him in the heat of his
political crisis in the state, describing them as men of
strong character.