TheCable

Ibim Semenitari, managing director of the Niger Delta Development Company (NDDC), says Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, did not oppose the re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan for personal reasons.

Semenitari, who served as commissioner for information when Amaechi was Rivers state governor, said the minister turned against Jonathan to “save Nigeria from the brink”.

In a chat with The Interview magazine, Semenitari said Amaechi believed that Nigeria needed a different person as president.

“Amaechi believed that Muhammadu Buhari had all it took to change the trajectory and envisioned that Nigeria was heading in a different direction,” the magazine quoted her as saying in its latest edition.

“For him (Amaechi) having Buhari there was great for the integrity of the country and also to pull back the country from the brink.”

Semenitari said he had no thought of any personal reward for doing what he did.

According to the magazine, the NDDC MD said this in response to a question about whether her own position and the double ministry assigned to Amaechi by Buhari were rewards for Amaechi’s electoral contribution.

Amaechi, a former member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and chairman of the governors’ forum, was one of the governors who broke away from the former ruling party, leading a charge that proved fatal to Jonathan and the PDP’s electoral fortune in 2015.