TheCable

Phrank Shaibu, an aide of Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has asked Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, to resign and return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Amaechi served his two terms as governor and speaker of the Rivers state house of assembly under the PDP.

Reacting to the leaked audio where Amaechi reportedly criticised Buhari, Shaibu said it took courage for the minister to take such a step.

“We lament the shabby treatment of Amaechi for speaking truth to power in a leaked audio tape which led to his being made a ceremonial director general of the president’s re-election campaign organization,” he said.

“We dare say that the cold war between the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mr. Rotimi Amaechi as well as the statements credited to the latter in a leaked tape which led to the appointment of Tinubu to take charge of the campaigns are at the least a national embarrassment to the nation. Amaechi must now resign and return home to the PDP where he belongs.”

During the inauguration of Buhari’s reelection campaign

Shaibu, who had earlier released audio where Amaechi made some controversial statements about the president, released yet another voice recording of the minister.

In the latest audio,  Amaechi described Lagos as a “glorified village”

“Apart from Abuja , check anywhere else that has infrastructure… Lagos is a glorified village… the only difference between Lagos and other cities is that fact that our business is in Lagos and when our people are doing business they can always have food,” he said.

“If not, what do you have in Lagos? 1000 plus megawatts, that’s all. What else do they have? No water, there are no roads. When you hear traffic jam in Lagos or any part of Nigeria it’s because they are no roads. Why is there no traffic jam in Abuja? The reason why you meet traffic jam in Lagos is because they are no roads.”

Atiku said the sentiments expressed by Amaechi in the leaked audios were in tandem with those of the PDP and the Nigerian public to the effect that Nigerians were hungry and need a to be rescued from a clueless All Progressives Congress administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

”I have said it several times that the APC and the government it controls at the centre are clueless, confused and totally incapable of piloting the affairs of this nation. Is there any better evidence of this cluelessness than what Nigerians are witnessing now?

”It does not matter how much the President tries to engage in damage control over what has led him to make Rotimi Amaechi take the back seat even as the Director General of his re-election campaign or the evil silence by the President and the APC over Amaechi’s shocking comments that reflect the thinking in the highest echelon of the Buhari administration, that the president’s incompetence was behind the slow pace of progress the nation was making, administration opt to dance naked in the public square.”