SpicyTricks

... His probe of my tenure a witch hunt

Former Rivers State Governor, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Amaechi, has described ongoing probe of his tenure as governor by his successor, Mr. Ezebuwon Nyesom Wike, as “a deliberate witch-hunt”.

Amaechi said Wike had gone ahead with his plan of threatening, coercing and blackmailing officials of his administration, especially civil servants into making false, phony and bogus statements that would make legitimate government transactions appear as corrupt practices.

In a reaction through his media aide, David Iyofor, Amaechi urged Rivers people, the media and the public “to be watchful, vigilant and discern the fraudulent acts” of the new Administration meant to paint him(Amaechi) and the Administration he headed appear evil.

Amaechi said, “As I noted earlier in a previous statement, Nyesom Wike is going ahead with his plan of attempting to deride and discredit me and my administration, by blackmailing and coercing key government officials including DFAs, Permanent Secretaries and others to twist and distort legitimate government transactions in his desperation to cook-up, and fabricate baseless, concocted and unfounded cases of corruption against me and the administration I ran.

Amaehi alleged that Wike had continued to threaten, harass, blackmail and coerce Permanent Secretaries and Directors of Finance & Administration(DFA's) in various ministries, parastatals, agencies etc in the state into doing his bidding of painting Amaechi as corrupt in the administration of the state. The state bankers and some of our contractors are also not spared in this his mission of tarnishing the reputation of Amaechi. As a matter of fact, Wike has only one agenda as he governs Rivers State - the agenda to portray me as corrupt, by whatever means no matter how ridiculous and phony it looks”.

Amaechi also described as a fraud the video and pictures of the looted and vandalized Government House that Wike has been showing.

“The images are also fraudulent, arranged and executed by Wike to enable him vote billions of Naira from the state treasury to renovate and refurbish the place, while also accusing me of corruption. I repeat, this is clearly a game, a grand conspiracy to siphon state funds under the sub-head of renovating and refurbishing a supposedly 'vandalized and looted' Government House, while also falsely smear my image”.

“Wike said the curtains in the Governor's residence were looted, but even in his stage-managed images, you could clearly see that the curtains are still intact. I left Government House intact.”

“Rivers people should hold Wike responsible if there's any looting and vandalism in Government House. There is verifiable information that on May 29, Wike stopped key Government House staff including the Permanent Secretary(who's the chief accounting officer) from entering the premises, only to shout looting and vandalism 48 hours later. Why were civil servants, including the most senior civil servant in Government House, barred from entering the compound on May 29? Was it to give him time and provide cover to stage-manage the shooting of the fraudulent video that he's now gleefully showing?”, Amaechi asked.

Amaechi further urged the public and the media to disregard the phony photos by Wike as its contents are fraudulent.