Amaechi: Wike so desperate to portray me as corrupt

Chibuike Amaechi, immediate past governor of Rivers state, has accused Nyesom Wike, his successor, of witch-hunting him and coercing officials of his administration into making bogus statements that would make legitimate government transactions appear as corrupt practices.

Amaechi urged the public to be watchful and “discern the fraudulent acts” of Wike to make him and his administration look bad.

“As I noted earlier in a previous statement, Nyesom Wike is going ahead with his plan of attempting to deride and discredit me and my administration, by blackmailing and coercing key government officials including DFAs, Permanent Secretaries and others to twist and distort legitimate government transactions in his desperation to cook up, and fabricate baseless, concocted and unfounded  cases of corruption against me and the administration I ran,” he said in a statement issued on his behalf by David Iyiofor, his spokesman.

“Only yesterday, Tuesday, Wike threatened, harassed, blackmailed and coerced permanent secretaries and directors of finance & administration(DFA) in various ministries, parastatals, agencies etc in the state into doing his bidding of painting Amaechi as corrupt in the administration of the State.

“The State bankers and some of our contractors are also not spared in this his mission of tarnishing the reputation of Amaechi. As a matter of fact, Wike has only one agenda as he governs Rivers state – the agenda to portray me as corrupt, by whatever means no matter how ridiculous and phony it looks.”

Amaechi told the people to hold Wike responsible for the looting of the government house, maintaining that he left the place intact.

“Rivers people should hold Wike responsible if there’s any looting and vandalism in government house,” he said.

“There is verifiable information that on May 29, Wike stopped key government house staff, including the permanent secretary (who’s the chief accounting officer), from entering the premises, only to shout looting and vandalism 48 hours later.

“Why were civil servants, including the most senior civil servant in government house, barred from entering the compound on May 29? Was it to give him time and provide cover to stage-manage the shooting of the fraudulent video that he’s now gleefully showing?

“Wike said the curtains in the governor’s residence were looted, but even in his stage-managed images, you could clearly see that the curtains are still intact. I left Government House intact.”