How my father-in-law sustained my marriage —Amaechi

Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, has disclosed that he and his wife, Judith, were able to wade through the stormy waters of poverty with the help of his late father-in-law, Pa Celestine Nnamdimere Ndukwu.

He made the disclosure while speaking during the funeral mass of the late Pa Ndukwu, the Okeosisi 1 of Umuamusa, at the St. Patrick’s Catholic Church, Amucha in Njaba Local Government Area of Imo State.

The former governor of Rivers State, while extolling the virtues of his late father-in-law who died at the age of 80, said he was a very good man who made remarkable impacts, not only in his life, but also in the lives of others.

“The man we came to honour here today was a very good man. If he was not, we won’t be here. I don’t know how he had impacted on your lives, but I can tell you how he impacted on mine.

“When I married my wife, I wasn’t a rich man. In fact, it was at the time when they overthrew former Interim President Ernest Shonekan. We just married that week and I was Special Assistant to former Governor Peter Odili. I had no money, it was so bad. Two persons sustained us (me and my wife); Chief and Mrs Ndukwu.

“These two persons guided us and they did a lot for us. Never a day did I get a call from Ndukwu and his wife asking their son-in-law who became governor to give them money. Chief and Mrs Ndukwu never asked. He was in love with education; they both love education and that is what my wife and I have imbibed.

“If there is one thing my wife has achieved against my advice, it is in the number of primary and nursery schools she established all over Rivers State without my approval. I did not approve because I had worries about the sustenance of those schools, but to the glory of God the schools are all being sustained but very challenging than it was before. So let me thank the people of Amucha for the man called Ndukwu. Without him I could not have married their daughter and since I married their daughter, I have been blessed”, he said.