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I knew Tinubu lacked capacity to be President – Amaechi
Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State, sank his teeth deeper into the skin of President Bola Tinubu on Saturday, all but dismissing his government as a non-event, giving his dismal outing in the last two years, occasioned by biting poverty and massive corruption.
Amaechi, who resigned as Minister of Transportation, a position he held for eight years, to contest for the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in June 2022, eventually lost by a wide margin to Tinubu, who was also Governor of Lagos State at a time and Leader of the Party, before the contest.
Recalling an encounter between him and the President, Amaechi, also two-time Director of Campaigns for Muhammadu Buhari, which made him the arrowhead in the process of enthroning the APC government in 2015 and sustaining it in 2019, through the re-election of the former President, spared no words in carpeting Tinubu’s performance.
In fact, he indicated that he was not surprised at the dismal outcome, since he had issues with the capacity of the President to deliver from the outset, an issue he said he made known to Tinubu prior to his campaign for the number one job.
The former Governor who spoke at an event in Abuja to mark his 60th birthday, told participants including Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President, Nasir El-Rufai, former Governor of Kaduna State, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, 16th Emir of Kano and Seriake Dickson, former Governor of Bayelsa State, spoke of Tinubu’s government as one where corruption was crawling on its belly.
His words: “I met President Tinubu in Yola and I told him I will not work for you and I will not vote for you. I did not vote for Tinubu. I told him in advance before the election. I am saying this because of people who feel that I do not work for PDP or APC. I had already told Tinubu in advance and why I said that was because of the issue of capacity.
“The current government and their agencies and who work with them, they are not even afraid. You see the kind of houses they are building. If they are not afraid, I am ashamed of them because they have no name. In fact, they say, ‘who did name help?
“The government said it has stopped the payment of about N5 trillion in fuel subsidy, the question is: ‘What did they do with the money?’ If you had put it back into the economy, the issue of poverty would have been reduced.”
Stating how he solved the problem of insecurity and poverty, which he acknowledged remained major issues in the country during his time as governor, having noticed that they were tied to the increase in crime rate, he stressed how he enhanced the circulation of money in the system as a major factor in stemming the tide.
His words: “When I was governor of Rivers State, I told my Commissioner of Finance; he is here. What did I tell you? I said, go and raise money, pay contractors, pay salary, pay money.
“And once you pay, insecurity will go away. So, it’s about poverty. It’s about poverty. But currently, everybody wants to amass wealth and the major problem with Nigerians is that they don’t know how to protest. It’s only during elections that politicians begin to plan in the minds of Nigerians that they are either Christians or Muslims, playing ethnicity cards instead of capacity-building.
“They came up with a Muslim-Muslim ticket and where has that led us to? They should have equally come up with a Muslim-Muslim market. Hunger knows no one whether you are a Muslim or a Christian. I always say, let’s put the country first in all we do.”
Atiku, who accused the President Tinubu-led government of deliberately using poverty as a political weapon, said the government was using poverty as a weapon to hold Nigerians to ransom, in order to run away from its non-performance and not living up to peoples’ expectations.
“You may call me a conspirator; you may call me anything, and that is why we are in this alliance to make sure we don’t allow them to continue weaponising poverty. Of course, one of our star conspirators is Governor Rotimi Amaechi. Therefore, we are here to wish you many happy returns of the day.
“And we will continue to conspire with you to make sure we minimise poverty and we don’t use state machinery to weaponise poverty. I thank you very much.”
El-Rufai on his part also bemoaned the current situation in Nigeria, stating that it had never witnessed the type of trouble that has beset it since 1914 adding that it was for this purpose that every Nigerian must join hands in saving it.
His words: “That is why we are together working and conspiring to build a coalition to take Nigeria back on track because it is off track. Nigeria is in the biggest trouble since 1914. It has turned to this level because we have allowed bandits, not the ones in the bushes but the ones in the urban areas called the urban bandits to take over leadership.
“I believe that the problem that we have, which I think Governor Babangida referred to, is that we just get incompetent people and we hand over leadership to them. Most of them don’t really know what to do. They just know how to grab power but don’t know what to do with it. Nigerians must stand up and vote for leaders that have the competence, capability, capacity, and commitment to move the country forward.”
For Sanusi, who while bewailing the level of poverty in Nigeria, as alarming, argued that he never realised how bad the picture was, the real situation could not be painted in cities like Lagos and Kano, a situation which he said became apparent when he mounted the throne.
Hear him: “It is nothing. You actually have to go where the majority of our people live to know what poverty is. So, the first question I think we have to ask ourselves as leaders, all of us, is, ‘do we actually love the people, or do you just love ruling over them?’
“Do we actually love Nigerians as human beings? You can say, I love Nigeria. What is Nigeria? It’s the people who live there. What are our priorities? I did not know about poverty until I became an Emir, seeing things myself.”
But Seriake Dickson, presented a different perspective to the narrative saying people must be careful about their political decisions, citing how Nigeria eventually turned out after the All Progressives Congress (APC) promised Nigerians change.
His words: “Remember, this was how you people collaborated to remove a good government. Eleven years later, you people are here again, discussing collaboration. I say to Nigerians ‘shine your eyes.”
The corruption profile of Nigeria has dipped again in global reckoning with Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index, announcing that it slipped two places to 142nd out of 182 countries in the 2025.
In the damning report, which underscored the nation’s poor performance on the global anti-corruption ranking, Nigeria showed poor progress from its position in 2024 index, where it ranked 140 out of 180 countries with a score of 26 out of 100.
The addition of two countries in the latest rankings saw Nigeria maintain its score of 26 despite dropping two places.
Ranks can change if the number of countries included in the index changes, but a country’s score is the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of 0-100, where 0 means highly corrupt and 100 means very clean.
In its latest report, sub-Saharan Africa was the lowest performing region with an average score of 32 out of 100, with only four of the 49 countries scoring above 50.
Seychelles maintained the region’s highest scorer, with 68, followed by Cabo Verde (62), Botswana (58) and Rwanda (58), while Sudan (14), Eritrea (13), Somalia (9) and South Sudan (9), maintained the bottom spots.
Nigeria’s progress in tackling corruption, despite President Bola Tinubu’s repeated pledge to tackle the menace, has been slow.
Nigeria, which best performance in the last decade was in 2016 when it ranked 136th and had a score of 28, scored 24 out of 100 in 2022, and ranked 150th; while in 2021, it scored the same but placed 154th — its worst performance under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
Paul Banoba, regional advisor for Africa at TI, said public sector corruption always hits the most vulnerable people hardest, adding: “African governments need to urgently translate anti-corruption commitments into decisive action by further strengthening accountability institutions and increasing transparency, protecting civic space and supporting the public.
In 2024, the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), controversially named Tinubu a finalist for its ‘Corrupt Person of the Year’ award.
“The police must open the secretariat because they are required to comply with the court order. The closure resulted from disagreements within the party over who constitutes the genuine leadership, but that matter has already been settled by the court.
This was the position of the Nyesom Wike camp of the Peoples Democratic Party, as it prepares to take possession of the Wadata Plaza complex in line with the Federal High Court, Ibadan Division verdict, last month recognising it as the authentic leadership.
The PUNCH, quoted Jungudo Mohammed, spokesman of the National Caretaker Committee, raised by the camp last year, explained that members did not take over on Monday, due to ongoing administrative and security processes.
The paper quoted Mohammed, National Publicity Secretary of the National Caretaker Committee, as saying: “I am not aware that the police declined our request, and I do not believe that is true. The police are the appropriate authority to confirm why the secretariat has not yet been opened, and we cannot force them.
“They are still carrying out their administrative and security processes before taking final action. However, we are certain that the secretariat will be reopened.
“Therefore, the police are expected to reopen the secretariat to allow for the lawful activities and business of the political party. It is not true that the police declined our request; what we know is that they intend to reopen it once their internal processes are concluded.”
When asked about their next steps if the police failed to reopen Wadata Plaza, Mohammed said, “We are law-abiding people and leaders, and we will continue to engage the police respectfully to understand any delays and address any concerns they may have.
“We will not resort to violence or unlawful actions. The police are a law-enforcement agency and must comply with court orders, and we are confident it will not escalate to any conflict.
“What we know for certain is that the secretariat will be reopened for party activities. The exact date for reopening is not yet known because administrative processes sometimes face delays, even after tentative timelines are given. Nonetheless, once those processes are completed soon, we remain optimistic that the secretariat will be reopened.”
On Sunday, both the Wike-backed PDP camp and the Tanimu Turaki (SAN)-led NWC exchanged words over the planned reopening of the secretariat.
While the Wike-backed camps insisted it would go ahead with the takeover of the headquarters, the Turaki camp, backed by Governors Seyi Makinde (Oyo), Bala Mohammed (Bauchi), Dauda Lawal (Zamfara) and Ahmadu Fintiri (Adamawa), had stated that the police would bear the responsibility if anything happened at the party headquarters.
On January 30, 2026, a Federal High Court in Ibadan nullified the PDP National Convention held on November 15, 2025, and barred Turaki (SAN) and several others elected during the election from presenting themselves as national officers of the party.
Prior to the ruling, PDP governors had endorsed the Ibadan convention, which had elected Turaki and the National Working Committee members for a four-year term.
While the governors oversaw a transition from former Chairman Umar Damagum to Turaki before Damagum’s tenure ended on December 9, the Wike-aligned faction formed a 13-member caretaker committee on December 8, appointing Abdulrahman Mohammed as acting national chairman, Samuel Anyanwu as acting national secretary, and other officials with a 60-day mandate.
Efforts by both factions to hold a meeting at Wadata Plaza on November 18, 2025, ended in violence, after which the police sealed the PDP National Headquarters, which had remained closed for nearly three months.
Following the ruling of the Oyo State High Court sitting in Ibadan, which favoured the Wike camp, the party pledged to hold a fresh convention to elect new party officials.
INEC subsequently invited the Wike-backed faction to represent the PDP in line with the court order.
At the meeting, Anyanwu announced that the Wadata Plaza Secretariat would be reopened for their use on Monday, a move the Turaki-led NWC kicked against.
Apparently to press home a vital message, Rotimi Amaechi, former Governor of Rivers State, on Tuesday, stormed the National Assembly complex, venue for the on-going, electoral reform protests with his son in tow.
The former governor, who for eight years, served as Minister of Transportation in the government of the late President Muhammadu Buhari, said the presence of his son, a medical doctor, was to serve dual purposes – to emphasise that the protest did not exclude anyone and for him to attend to the medical needs of the protesters.
The protest, which began on Monday, was called to demonstrate against the Senate’s rejection of mandatory electronic transmission of election results in future elections in Nigeria, particularly that of 2027.
Stressing that his son had to come along in case the demonstration turned violent and injuries are sustained, the former Minister, explained that he came with his son to demonstrate his belief that during major protests, leaders should be at the forefront with their families.
Amaechi, currently a chieftain of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), called on Nigerians to rise up against the bad governance of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which he accused of being opposed to electronic transmission of election results because it feared losing elections.
His words: “I believe that the opposition parties should come out – PDP, ADC, everybody should be out – to protest against the attempt of one party. If we come out, and they say the opposition has hijacked (the protest), what is APC doing? Are they not hijacking?
“What are they afraid of? I thought they said they have 31 governors and Tinubu is not Jonathan. The only way a good politician will know he has done well is by the people.”
He further stated that while Senate President Godswill Akpabio and President Bola Tinubu may ignore the demands of Nigerians, opposition parties and civil society organisations would persist until the decision is reversed.
Meanwhile, operatives of the Nigeria Police Force barricaded major roads leading to the National Assembly, where the Senate is scheduled to hold an emergency plenary session on Tuesday.
The protest is being led by human rights activist Aisha Yusuf, alongside several civil society groups that initiated the demonstration on Monday.
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