TheCable

Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, has appealed to the people of Rivers state to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the forthcoming rerun election.

On Saturday, the Independent National Electoral Election (INEC) will conduct rerun election in the state house of assembly, house of representatives and senate.

Speaking at a town hall meeting in a community on Tuesday, Amaechi accused former President Goodluck Jonathan of imposing Nyesom Wike, governor of the state, on the people.

He appealed to them to reject candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the election to “shame the former president”.

“We must stop Nyesom Wike and the only way we can stop him is to vote the APC in the house of representatives, house of assembly and senate,” he said.

“I built a secondary school and it has been taken over by weeds. It is the punishment that former President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, in her bid to get money from me, did on us. They forced Wike on us without election. In their time, they threw APC members into detention, but is there any PDP member in detention now? That’s the difference between them and us.

“This is our opportunity to vote and put shame on them; we have to put shame on three persons: the first person is the former president, the second, is his wife and the third is Wike. The fourth is those who do not recognise the use of card reader, those who first said the magnitude of violence in Rivers was too heavy and moved the election tribunal to Abuja, but later came back to say there was no election, we leave them to God.”

Commenting on the allegations of corruption against him, Amaechi said he used the money, which Wike accused him of misappropriating, to develop the state.

“The greatness happiness I have as the former governor of Rivers state is that any campaign, whether it is APC or PDP, they used my facilities,” he said.

“I have watched Nyesom Wike’s campaign. If it is at a stadium it is the stadium that I built. If it is a primary school, that is the primary school I built. And he told me that he is looking for Rivers state money, did I use my teeth to build those facilities?

“Before I became a governor, there was no road in Afara community, and I gave you a road. There was no school, and I gave you a school; there was no electricity and I gave you light. Tell Nyesom Wike that if he is looking for the money, that is the money I used.”