Rotimi Amaechi
Transportation minister, Rotimi Amaechi has talked about his life, education and his eventual foray into politics.
Minister of Transportation, Rotimi
Amaechi, has had a fulfilling political career. At different times, he
has been the Governor of Rivers State, Speaker of the Rivers State House
of Assembly and held several other offices. He tells TUNJI ABIOYE and
TOFARATI IGE about his career, family and other issues
At a time, you were the
president of the National Union of Rivers State Students. What were the
highlights of your tenure at that time?
That was a long time ago, so I cannot
really recall what happened. I was very young then. I left the
university at the age of 20/21. It was just a radical life in terms of
what I believed in and I still believe in those things till now anyway. I
believe that the poor are not properly represented by the government –
whether it is this current administration or the ones before it. The
poor are still here and I doubt if they would ever go away. What happens
is that the elite – whether the capitalists or socialists – must
manage them in such a way that they can be provided for.
At what point did you develop an interest in politics?
My father was a politician. He ran for
councillorship during his time. However, I didn’t join politics because I
wanted to be a leader or because I wanted to solve Nigeria’s problems.
I joined because of unemployment. I also believe there is a part that
grace played in it.
I actually got auditioned at the Nigeria
Television Authority to be a broadcaster. I recall that I walked into
their office then and said I wanted to see a certain person. But the
person I met asked me if I had been auditioned because I had a wonderful
voice. I told him I hadn’t and he asked for me to be auditioned.
However, before the employment letter came, I was already into politics.
That saved me. I would have been a broadcaster by now.
Considering that you had been exposed to politics at a young age, why did you decide to study English Studies and Literature?
I joined politics in the university. My
father actually wanted me to study Law. A lot of people don’t know that
he named me ‘Rotimi’ after the famous lawyer, Frederick Rotimi Alade
Williams. My father never met him (Williams) but he admired FRA’s
larger-than-life persona and the fact that he was a brilliant lawyer.
So, my father believed that I would be a lawyer and I should be able to
do as well as FRA. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get admission to
study Law. The first admission offer I got was to study Secretarial
Administration and we all laughed over that at home. At that time, in
addition to the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, I also wrote
an exam to get into the Rivers State University of Science and
Technology. I had even started registration as a student of RSUT before I
was offered admission (through UTME) to study English Studies and
Literature at the University of Port Harcourt. I applied to study
English at UNIPORT because the school had no law faculty then.
However, I have no regrets studying
English Studies and Literature because it is all-encompassing. I would
be glad if any of my children or those of my friends decide to study
English. Most people think English Studies is about grammar but that
isn’t so. There is an English language department in English Studies. I
read Literature.
In what ways have your study of English Literature impacted on your career?
In the study of Literature, the society
is presented to one like a mirror and one interprets what one sees. I
can tell you why you behave the way you do even though I’m not a
psychologist. I can interpret society the way it is. I can make
decisions based on my knowledge of society, and I got a lot of that from
studying Literature.
What was the reaction of your family members when you decided to go into full-time politics?
My father was indifferent. Don’t forget
he was a politician. I’m not sure he knew I would get to the point I
have got to, even though he died before I became a governor.
If you weren’t a politician, what do you think you would have been doing now?
I would have loved to become a
broadcaster or a lawyer. If I didn’t go into politics, I would have gone
on to study Law. Though how good a lawyer I would have made, I cannot
tell.
Are there any broadcasters you currently admire?
Yes, there are a lot of them. In Nigeria, I love what the young men at Channels Television are doing.
How did you meet your wife?
It’s a funny story. We met at a friend’s
wedding where she was the chief bridesmaid. We exchanged addresses but
she gave me the wrong address. The address she gave me led me to a
toilet in the university. I forgot about her until I ran into her one
day in the estate where I lived in Port Harcourt. We actually lived on
the same street but I didn’t know. By then, I was a special assistant to
the governor of Rivers State. We began to interact and one thing led
to another; today, we are man and wife.
What were the qualities that attracted you to your wife?
My wife is very pretty; extremely
beautiful. She is also entrepreneurial. I needed a wife that I would be
heavily dependent on. And till now, I’m still heavily dependent on her–
financially and in other ways.
Whenever I’m broke, she usually bails me
out because she is always buying and selling things. I even joke with
her that I hope that someday I wouldn’t return home and find that she
had sold our children (laughs).
She is also very prayerful. She fears
God a lot and that is one quality I admire in her. She was very
respectful to my parents and is caring to my siblings. She encouraged me
to make sure that all my siblings were educated and today, they all
are. She always reminded me that my family should also enjoy the kind of
benefits I got. Even when I told her I had no money, she would ask me
to borrow from her and pay back when I had. Most times, I never paid
back. Basically, it’s a huge family managed by her.
You’ve been busy for a long time. How often do you get to spend time with your family?
I dedicated the THISDAY award I
won to my wife and kids because of their understanding. It got to a
point when they asked me to resign (my appointment) or retire (from
politics). They said they were tired and needed spousal and parental
attention. But 30 minutes later, they came back and said maybe I didn’t
need to stop. I asked them why the change of mind and they said it was
because of the passion I have for what I do and they recognised that is
what makes me happy.
Before then, my children had asked me
about what I would do if I retired from politics and I told them I would
spend time in their rooms discussing with them. But they said they
were young men now and didn’t see what we would be discussing for so
long, so I had better stay in politics.
Are any of your children showing interest in politics?
I have a fear that my first son may do
that because he has friends everywhere. I have been shouting at him but
he doesn’t listen. He has very high leadership qualities too. Sometimes
in the past, I have told him that he is deceived by the fact that he
has leadership qualities. I told him those qualities were different
from brilliance and intelligence. I asked him to read his books, as
that was the way he could be brilliant. He is studying Medicine and he
would soon graduate. I have told him that immediately he graduates, he
must leave my house. It is only his two younger siblings that can stay
in my house. The reason is that my second son wants to be a musician
but we told him to get a degree first. Now that he has a degree, he
would come back into the family as a child and we would support his
music career.
My two other kids are quiet and homely. If they want to make a noise, they do that at home.
Why do you have a ‘fear’ that your first child may go into politics?
Nigerian politics is not something one
would want one’s child to go into because there are no rules. One can be
easily destroyed. One must have the grace to survive. I don’t know if
he has that grace (and I’m not talking about tact or sagacity) to
survive because it is a man-eat-man world.
You can see what is going on in Rivers
State now– young men, who God used one to help rise in politics are now
turning against one. If God wasn’t by my side, I may not have been
standing till now. There is a lot of betrayal and I don’t know if he can
survive that because he literally grew up in Europe. One has to be a
hard man to survive the betrayals in Nigerian politics. Imagine someone
you used to sleep on the same bed with and have given both financial
and political assistance to selling you out because of his ambition.
One of them said he helped make me! Meanwhile, when we were in court,
he wasn’t there with us; he ran away. Meanwhile, these are men that
used to literally prostrate themselves on the floor for me. But because
I’m a simple man, I always told them not to do all that. I told them
they should only do that for God and not for people like us. So I ask
myself, can my son withstand these intrigues?
Beyond what you just mentioned, what are the other factors militating against the success of young people in politics?
They need to work hard. Beyond prayer
and fasting, I also work hard. They also need to be bullish. Don’t just
accept that it’s not your right. Rather, assert and protect your
rights. Also, it is important to be at the right place at the right
time.
Looking at your career trajectory, you’ve had a steady rise in politics. What would you ascribe that to?
It has been more of grace. Though I work
hard, there are millions of Nigerians who do that as well. If it were
about hard work alone, what about the man who is pushing carts on the
streets? God has actually been there for me and that’s why my rise in
politics has been quite steady.
I cannot also ignore the contributions of Dr Peter Odili and Chief Rufus Ada-George to the growth of my career.
You were the Speaker of the
Rivers State House of Assembly for eight years. How were you able to
last that long and also maintain a good relationship with the executive
arm of government?
It was simply a function of management.
It could be quite complex to explain to you now. One has to accommodate
both sides. There are expectations from members of the House and if
you don’t meet them, you would be impeached. There are also
expectations from the executive and you would be impeached if you don’t
meet those as well. One is practically between the devil and the deep
blue sea.
But if one pleases the two parties, they
would both be happy and one can remain Speaker for as long as one
wants. Let me tell you some of the things I did. I realised that
majority of the members of the House at that time didn’t have cars. I
then asked the government to provide cars for everybody but the
government said they didn’t have money. I insisted, yet they refused, so
I devised another means. I asked the government to buy fairly used
vehicles for the members and the government eventually agreed. We then
bought fairly used Peugeot 505 cars for everybody and they were all
excited. Though the cars were not new but they were happy that they had
cars and could hire drivers.
Also, we passed budgets easily and the government was happy about that. And that made development to go on smoothly.
Over time, we then changed the vehicles
and bought new cars. So, you can imagine someone who used to ride a
motorcycle but now had a brand new car and a driver; such a person would
not upturn the apple cart.
At different times, members of the House
also went on study tours to learn from the legislative houses in
different countries. And with that, we had better relationships.
On one occasion, we went to California
in the United States of America. When we got to their legislature, the
person that addressed us told us of the many benefits that were
accruable to their members. Then, Magnus Abe, who was the Minority
Leader of the House at the time, turned to me and said I only used to
talk about probity and transparency but they weren’t enjoying that many
benefits.
But as the speaker continued, he
mentioned that there was always an ombudsman who monitored proceedings
in the House. It was the ombudsman who would ensure that rules were not
broken. For example, he said that members couldn’t use their official
vehicles for anything other than legislative duties. I then told my
colleagues that though they were not enjoying as much benefits as their
counterparts in the US, the law in Nigeria was more lenient with them,
as they often went with their official vehicles to weddings and other
personal engagements.
Who are your role models and how have they influenced your politics?
Both Dr (Peter) Odili and Chief Rufus
Ada-George influenced my sojourn in politics a lot. They are both good
men. Unfortunately, at some point, they both fell apart and I don’t know
why. I don’t believe it’s a matter of ambition because Dr Odili was
once offered the governorship of Rivers State by Tom Ikimi but he
rejected it, that he would rather be deputy governor to Ada-George
because that was the agreement they had earlier reached. Most Nigerians
would have done otherwise but he refused.
As someone who has followed the both of
them for a long time, I honestly don’t know what caused their falling
out. They have the same spirit. They are both very benevolent and
caring. As a matter of fact, my father was practically buried by Dr
Odili because I had no money when my father died. Both men have greatly
influenced my politics. My politics is very benevolent and my children
are like that too. I am willing to share all I have and go hungry
rather than see another man suffer. I hate to see a sick person and not
be able to help. If the person dies, I would feel like I killed the
person. Though it’s also part of me, a lot of (those qualities) came
from Dr Odili and Chief Ada-George.
Also, (I admire) the discipline of
Muhammadu Buhari. I wish I was that disciplined. People think it is easy
to be disciplined but it’s not. If you want to know what discipline
is, try to stay hungry for one month. I’m not talking about fasting.
Or imagine someone craving chocolate (or any other thing) and not
taking it, even if it is right in front of you.
President, (Major General) Muhammadu
Buhari (retd.) is so disciplined that he is able to resist temptation to
reply his critics when they abuse him.
Also, I admire his love for the country.
That trait can also be found in (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo.
They have fierce love for the country. However, the difference between
both men is that Obasanjo thinks his idea of growth for the country is
better than anybody else’s own. But there can always be alternatives.
And maybe Buhari’s own could be another one.
What are some of the most memorable experiences of your childhood?
There was no silver spoon. I didn’t even
know there was anything like that. My father was a very strict man and
he went through a lot to raise me. He didn’t suffer fools gladly. If
one broke the law in the house, one had better not sleep at home
because once the person got home, he would lock the door and give the
person a beating of a lifetime.
I asked my children recently if I had
ever beaten them before and they said I did that once. You can imagine I
had beaten them only once since they were kids till now. But while I
was growing up, it was a regular thing with my father. But they (my
children) said my screaming and the way I stared at them when they broke
laws were enough to keep them from straying.
My father also had a habit of locking
one out when one had committed an offence. One would then have to sleep
on the ‘passage’ because it was a tenement building of about 12 rooms.
If one was unlucky to have slept off by 2am, that was when my father
would come out with a cane and flog the person.
I also remember the celebration that
occurred when one did well in school and broke academic records. Don’t
forget that we were studying under harsh conditions then. We had no
books (because our father couldn’t afford them) while others had.
I recall when I used to follow my father
to the (oil) rigs and I would meet white men. It used to be so
exciting. When my father worked as a dispensing pharmacist, I used to
enjoy going with him to the hospital and meeting doctors.
What are some of the greatest lessons you have learnt in politics?
I used to be a very carefree person.
Though I’m still one, I have managed to keep people, no matter how
close, away from my private life, because one could be betrayed at any
time. I have learnt that from politicians. If I had let them
(politicians) into my life, I am sure by now, they would have been
claiming that I own one thing or the other. The politicians in Rivers
State have betrayed people so badly that one cannot trust anybody.
How will the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price slump affect the delivery of the ongoing rail projects?
The paucity of funds has been worsened by COVID-19.
How would you assess
Governor Nyesom Wike’s handling of the COVID-19 lockdown, enforcement of
the interstate travel ban and hotel demolition?
I choose to remain quiet and focus on transportation.
Why have you chosen to remain quiet on Rivers State?
Because they won’t know the difference.
What’s the future of the APC in Rivers state?
The future is great when we work hard.
What are your expectations of the transport sector post-COVID-19?
It is difficult to say until it has come to an end.
***
Source: Sunday PUNCH
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