Minister of Transportation and All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential hopeful, Rotimi Amaechi, has appealed to the state executive members of the party in Oyo State to refrain from playing the ethnic card in choosing the party’s presidential candidate next month.
The former Rivers State governor, who has been touring the South-West zone since last week, spoke on Monday when he met the APC state executive at the party’s secretariat in Ibadan.
Amaechi said he would be a president for all Nigerians should he get the nod of the party’s delegates to be the candidate and win next year’s presidential election.
He cited the Lagos-Ibadan railway project as part of his commitment to the development of all parts of the country, promising to replicate his success as Rivers State governor in the country.
“They will come and talk to you. They will raise ethnic sentiment that I am not a Yoruba aspirant or Hausa-Fulani or Igbo aspirant. I am a Nigerian person. I will work for you the way I work in my house. I will work for Nigerians the way I worked in Rivers State.
“I will make the difference. What makes the difference? I am the only aspirant, whether, in PDP or APC, that has governed a state where there was insecurity. Let everybody come out if they have done so. There is none. Not even our leader in Lagos State.
“I faced insecurity, kidnapping and I overcame them. I saw poverty in the eyes of my people and I chose to feed and grow them. So, just give me that opportunity. I will make a difference. I was a speaker for eight years, governor for two terms and minister for two terms. If I was not making the difference, I would not be in those positions,” he said.
He assured the APC members that after God, Nigerians would be next under his presidency and not members of his family.
“We must do something so that insurgency does not get to the South-West. Why do we have militancy and all that? The economic reality of Nigeria has changed. In 1970, we would say the problem of Nigeria is not money but how to spend it.
“Now, what is the problem of Nigeria? It is not how to spend the money but where to get it from. So, we have to work together to look for the money,” he said.
In his entourage were Senator Ifeanyi Araraume; a former Chief of Staff in Edo State, Patrick Obahiaghon; Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and 2019 APC gubernatorial candidate in Benue State, Emmanuel Lyambee Jime and many others.
Earlier, the APC state chairman, Isaac Omodewu, described Amaechi as one of the best to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, having been tested at various rungs of leadership.
Omodewu, who is a former works commissioner, commended Amaechi for the commitment shown during the rail project as well as the conceptualisation of the Ibadan Dry Port project.
IN CASE YOU MISSED THESE FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
- ‘Officials initially offered to help but when the number of able-bodied citizens at the centre increased, they left us unattended to’
- Why Ogun Tops List Of ‘Yahoo Boys’ In Nigeria ― Governor Abiodun
- Police, Amotekun after criminals on Lagos-Ibadan expressway
- Suspected cannibal pays N500,000 for boy’s human organs, says ‘that’s my favourite meal, especially the throat’
- Court awards Nnamdi Kanu N1 billion over invasion of his home by military, asks FG to apologise
and then