Amaechi, Minister For Transportation, Goes Into Presidential Race For South-south, South-east

By Charles Igbo

“I stand before you today to declare my intention, and submit my application to serve as your next President.” 

With these words, Minister for Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, threw his hat into the ring of the 2023 Presidential race.

The speculation had been strong for a couple of months that Amaechi was eyeing the Presidential seat against 2023. The ante was upped  when the Emir of  Daura, Faruk Umar Faruk, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Emir,  bestowed him with a high profile title.

During the ceremony, President Buhari sent  high profile representatives. Back to Abuja, Nigeria’s First Lady, Aisha Buhari, paid Amaechi and his wife, Judith, an unprecedented visit at their residence to congratulate the Minister on his title.

However, the Minister had kept denying any such interest until Saturday, April 9, 2022 when he declared his interest in his home State, Rivers State.

Amaechi spoke during a Thanksgiving ceremony organised by the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State. The ceremony was organised to put some life in the party which has remained fictionalized and almost irrelevant in the State.

Amaechi’s estranged  friend and his former Secretary to Government, when he was Governor, Magnus Abe, is leading a faction of the APC, opposed to Amaechi’s leadership of the Party in the State.

Amaechi’s entry into the 2023 Presidential race will not only breathe life into the APC in Rivers State, but it will spice up Rivers State politics, and extend to the whole of the South-east.

Here are why.

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, Amaechi’s successor, is also aspiring to the Presidential seat in 2023 under the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

The two former bosom friends parted ways over some deep irreconcilable differences. Before they parted ways, Wike was Amaechi’s Chief of Staff, having led the battle for the unprecedented declaration, by the Supreme Court, of Amaechi as the Governor of Rivers State when he stood for no election. He displaced his cousin, Celestine Omehia.

Not a few people think that Amaechi, in declaring to run in 2023, is cashing in on the clamor by the South-east of a President, in 2023, of Igbo extraction. Even though he is from the South-South, he is of Ikwerre, an Igbo speaking area.

In the past few months, Amaechi has let it be known that he is an Igbo man, and emphasised that nobody should deny him of his Igbo heritage and ancestry. “My birth names are Chibuike Amaechi. I am Igbo”, he recently said.

Some political analysts say President Buhari could back Amaechi and use him to kill three birds with one stone.

*A power shift to the South.

*Allowing the South-south to complete a two-term in office which was denied the Zones when he defeated President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

*Assuage the South-east which has been clamoring for a President from the Zone.

This means that Amaechi will be running to represent both the South-south and the South-east. Already, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has  embraced him as a beloved  Igbo son.

Other core Igbo sons seriously in the race are former Senate President, Anyim Pius Anyim and former Anambra State Governor, who was the PDP Vice Presidential candidate in 2019, Peter Obi.

Even though both Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa and Ebonyi State Governor, Dave Umahi, had declared interest under the PDP and the APC respectively, nothing much is being heard of their ambition.

Amaechi was a two- term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, a two-term Governor of Rivers State, a two-term Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, and presently, a two-term Minister of Transportation.

How the APC will manage its heavy weights in the race – Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Amaechi, and expectedly, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo will be interesting.

The party has already zoned  the office to the South.