TheCable

Rotimi Amaechi, former governor of Rivers state, has berated Nyesom Wike, his successor, for allegedly telling “lies” and accusing him of abusing his position as governor.

Amaechi said this on Tuesday while responding to Wike’s claims that the state government has “enough evidence” to nail Amaechi.

On Monday, Wike said his administration was in possession of authentic documents that proved Amaechi’s “corrupt acts”.

But in a statement issued by his media office in Abuja, Amaechi, who is the minister of transportation, dismissed Wike’s claims as “same old, false, provocative rabble-rousing of a distinctly delusional mind.”

He said Wike’s purported lies against him is “an attempt to distract and divert attention from his mindless plundering of the resources of the state.”

He recalled Wike’s claim that the Ikoyi apartment in which billions of cash were found belongs to him (Amaechi), but that the governor had “suddenly gone deaf and dumb on the Ikoyi money.”

Amaechi also said the commission of inquiry set up by the state government to investigate him was set up to “witch-hunt, malign and persecute” him.

“Wike has nothing, we mean absolutely nothing concrete to prove his fabricated claims. However, we are aware; as a matter of fact, it’s now public knowledge that Wike has been forging and distorting a cache of documents in his increasingly frantic efforts to denigrate Amaechi,” the statement read.

“Nigerians were shocked a few days back when Livingstone Wechie, the young man Wike used to accuse Amaechi of corruption and write false and frivolous petitions to the national assembly, EFCC etc, confessed freely and openly, that all the documents he used to wrongfully portray Amaechi as corrupt when he governed Rivers state, were phonies, forged documents given to him by Wike’s Rivers state government house.

“It is ludicrous and appalling that Wike is still talking about his credibility bereft commission of inquiry, when Livingstone Wechie also admitted that the forged documents was what was used as the template, the basis for the Justice Omereji-led panel Wike set up early in his administration to witch-hunt, malign and persecute Amaechi.

“Nigerians are now used to Wike’s shameful charade whenever he says he has ‘evidence’ against Amaechi.

“How can anyone take a character like Wike seriously, especially when he says he has evidence against Amaechi? How can a governor talk so recklessly and irresponsibly?

“Wike must realise that every lie has an expiry date. Rivers people are tired and sick of Wike’s fake stories of ‘Amaechi this, Amaechi that’, every day; rather the people want to know what happened to all the billions of naira Wike has collected from FAAC, Paris Club refund, internally generated revenue and the ones he borrowed.”