I didn’t receive N3tn allocation as governor – Amaechi

The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, said on Thursday that he did not receive over N3tn allocation as governor of Rivers State.

He said therefore he never squandered such amount as alleged by his successor, Nyesom Wike.

Amaechi said this at a stakeholders’ a stakeholder’s meeting on the London Summit on Anti-Corruption and the Open Government Partnership.

The event was co-organised by the Federal Ministry of Justice and  the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, Justice For All project.

Amaechi said the Rivers State people were aware of how much he received while he was governor, adding that his successor was only fabricating lies against him.

He said, “Within that period we insisted on engaging the indigenous communities on how much we received and how we spent the money.

“That is why I feel that after this ministerial appointment, I should do everything possible to stay away from government because in spite of all the forms of transparency I introduced in government, one man could begin to tell lies to Nigerians and Nigerians believe him.

“The governor of Rivers State said I squandered N3tn. I did not receive up to N1.8tn as governor both from IGR and funds from federal allocation. So, how could I have squandered money I did not even receive in the first place? You can see the politics of lies and lies.”

Amaechi insisted that he was not corrupt and challenged anybody to bring up evidence to the contrary.

He said, “As Minister of Transportation, I run an open and transparent system. I believe in name and shame.

“What name and shame does is, if you name and shame those of them who don’t have conscience they won’t come to public functions.

“I do have conscience. In fact, it was the word corruption that brought me to this occasion because I wanted to see who will get up and say to me, ‘this is evidence that you are corrupt.’

“We went to court against the Rivers State government on their allegation of corruption against me. The Court of Appeal said, produce that document that found this man (Amaechi) guilty of those crimes and up till today he (Wike) has not produced it.”

Earlier, in his speech the Attorney General and Minister of Justice  Abubakar Malami, said, “ As you are all aware, President Buhari made fighting corruption one of the pillars of this administration’s policy. Since assuming office, every effort has been made to build on and expand on what was initiated by previous governments. Amongst these key priorities is the need to recover stolen funds and to pay back to the Nigerian society what they have lost to corruption.

“You may recall that during the London Anti-Corruption Summit, President Muhammadu Buhari presented a country statement on actions that would be implemented by the government of Nigeria on anti-corruption reforms.”