SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, (THEWILL) – The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Tuesday noted that the people of the South-East have nothing to show for the support they accorded former president Goodluck Jonathan, who he said failed Igbos in spite of his numerous promises.
Amaechi, who was speaking at a forum in Ikeja, Lagos, declared that Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, stalwarts from the South- East should be ashamed of themselves for having free access to the then president but could not get roads in the region fixed.
“The Igbos gave Jonathan support, what did he do for you?” he asked rhetorically at the event meant to discuss the importance of social media in the polity.
Getting the chorus response of “Nothing!” from some members of the audience, the minister retorted: “of course!”
“President Jonathan went to Onitsha and danced and promised to construct Onitsha bridge. Right? After that nothing happened,” he asked.
“Now we are fixing the bridge without making promise. Or did we promise to construct Onitsha bridge? I didn’t hear him (Buhari) say he would construct Onitsha bridge during the campaign…except someone spoke on his behalf.
“Today we are constructing the second bridge…which is the River Niger bridge,” Amaechi said.
Insinuating that South-East politicians were before now seeing the president five times in a day yet could not get the road constructed, he said, “the relevance of a politician is not determined by how much he has in his pocket. It is determined by how much development he is able to bring…
“The Port Harcourt-Owerri road was terrible. One day I made the mistake as governor to try to go to Owerri and I passed through Aba. I wept. Now we are constructing that road; it may not be at the speed that you want but we are constructing the road. The next road I mentioned is the Enugu-Onitsha.
“We are doing Port Harcourt-Enugu, the most important road to the Igbo. The next most important road to the Igbo is Enugu to Onitsha, and he (Mr. Buhari) is doing it again… So who is better?
“The last man you people were dancing with at Onitsha bridge that promised you people that ‘Azikiwe commissioned this bridge and the second Azikiwe commissioned it again’ and never put a stone and the man who doesn’t talk at all… who didn’t make promise and he is doing it, which one do you prefer?”
“Don’t be deceived by those who depended on government alone for survival,” the former Rivers state governor said.
On the internal wrangling in the All Progressives Congress, APC, he said it was expected because the party, being the ruling party, has huge number of members, especially in states where elections are being held.
Speaking on the fight against corruption, Amaechi said the only way the government could tackle the menace is if it jailed those caught in the act.
“The only way to solve corruption in Nigeria is if you send ten rich men to jail. That is the key to fighting corruption,” he said.
