How Amaechi, As PDP Governor In 2011, Funded Buhari’s Congress For Progressive Change – El Rufai

By Adesina Soyooye

If you have been wondering why President Muhammadu  Buhari and Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi are close, wonder no more.

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, has quietly dropped a bomb by telling Nigerians why Amaechi is a main attraction for Buhari.

The Governor on Sunday, May 15, 2022, revealed how Transportation Minister, Chibuike Amaechi, in 2011, funded then Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress For Progressive Change,  CPC, with Rivers State money.

In 2011, Amaechi was the Governor of Rivers State under the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

El-Rufai exposed this in Kaduna when Amaechi, a Presidential aspirant under the APC, went to Kaduna State to lobby delegates to vote for him at the Party’s Primary.

Presenting Amaechi to the delegates who surprised not a few Nigerians a few days earlier when they  pledged their support for Presidential Aspirant, Bola Tinubu, given  El Rufai’s closeness to Amaechi,  he told them that Amaechi is a close friend of his, and a confidant of President  Buhari.

He went on to tell them the genesis of Amaechi’s closeness to Buhari.

According to El-Rufai’s story, it goes beyond 2014 when Amaechi ditched  the PDP and joined the All Progressives Congress, APC, under which Buhari became President in 2015, after failing for three consecutive times.

El-Rufai told them that Amaechi won Buhari’s heart when, in 2011, Amaechi, as a PDP  Rivers State Governor, funded the National Convention of  General Buhari’s CPC.

What it means, political analysts say, is that Amaechi did not only engage in anti-party activities against his then Party, the PDP, he funded the CPC Convention with Rivers State money.

El-Rufai, had a couple of months ago, said he had no interest in contesting for the office of the President, but would consider it if Buhari asks him to pair up with Amaechi.