TheCable

Henry Ugboma, chief medical director, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), has alleged that Nyesom Wike, governor of Rivers state, at the outset of his administration set up a committee to discredit Rotimi Ameachi, his predecessor. 

Wike had served as chief of staff when Amaechi was governor of the state.

Both men fell apart ahead of the 2015 election — with Ameachi defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Since then, Wike and Amaechi, the minister of transportation, have been at loggerheads. 

Speaking during a televised programme on Monday, the former member of the transition committee set up by Wike, alleged that the aim of the panel was to tarnish the image of Ameachi to prevent him from being appointed by the president.

“I can rightly tell you that the Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike has this paranoid issue against the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi,” he said.

“I noticed this as a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and that was one of the reasons I left the party.

“I was a member of the transition committee set up by Wike immediately after the election to marshall out and put together things that will destroy the honourable minister of transportation, and Governor Wike immediately set us to task, that we must derive, contrived things that will mess up Amaechi and destroy him politically, and make sure that he doesn’t take up any political position in the country. That was the mandate given to the transition committee.

“Directors, Permanent Secretaries and people in MDAs of the State were invited, some of them threatened, some of them encouraged that they will be given positions if they come up with issues that will give them the report that they will give to the Judicial Panel of Inquiry that the incoming governor, Wike will set up to immediately indict Amaechi.

“We immediately went to task. But when I saw what was happening, the reports they were issuing out, lies, immediately at the floor there, we were asked to start with the RSSDA (Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency) a scholarship unit that was setup by Amaechi, that sent a lot of our children from Rivers State to overseas for higher education.

“They were immediately written to, to come back and continue their academics in the country or forget about their education. Some of them have gone into depression overseas because they couldn’t continue, and staff of RSSDA were not paid salaries for months and years, till date, I don’t even know if that department still exists. This was what Wike started with as he came in.”

When called for a reaction to the allegation, Kelvin Ebiri, special assistant on media to Wike, did not respond nor reply to text messages sent to his phone.