Presidency To Amaechi: “Two  Years After, You Have Not Gotten Over Pain Of Defeat”

By Adesina Soyooye

Rotimi Amaechi, a former Transportation Minister, who was, also, a former two-term Governor of Rivers  State, has come under the sledge hammer of the Presidency.

Amaechi had, while speaking at his 60th birthday recently, had questioned the utilization of fuel subsidy savings under the Government of President Bola Tinubu’s.

The former Minister under the Government of President Muhammadu Buhari, had worried over what he saw as a “misdirection of national resources.” He alleged that subsidy removal gains were going into “private pockets.”

Amaechi: “If I were President, yes, I would pursue some of the policies they are pursuing, but ask what the failure is: the failure is that the gains of those policies are in their private pockets.

“At one point, we were paying between four to five trillion Naira as subsidy; where is the money now? If it had been injected into the economy, you would not be hearing complaints.”

But in a response to Amaechi, posted online, by the Special Adviser to the President on Social Media, Dada Olusegun, the Presidency hit Amaechi and dismissed his claims

as “misleading and politically motivated.”

On what is pushing Amaechi, Olusegun, said:

“More than two years after his primary election loss, it appears Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has not gotten over the legitimate pain of defeat. He is aligning with opposition forces and resurfacing on the political scene with outlandish comments, claims and falsehoods.

On fuel subsidy savings, Olusegun explained:

“In 2022 alone, the FG’s subsidy bill was ₦4.39 trillion — nearly half of what Nigeria spent on petrol subsidies over a nine-year span from 2006 to 2015. The real gain of subsidy removal was not in direct cash savings but in halting unsustainable borrowing and stopping the mortgaging of future oil revenues.

“Since January 2025, NNPCL began remitting 50% of crude oil revenues to the federation account, significantly increasing monthly disbursements to states.

“These tiers [of government] are not private pockets. Thanks to increased allocations, 33 states have repaid ₦1.85 trillion out of their ₦5.82 trillion in domestic debt — more than 30%. These are direct benefit of subsidy reforms.

Taking Amaechi on the  foreign exchange reforms, Olusegun said “the previous multiple exchange rate system cost Nigeria over ₦13.2 trillion between 2021 and 2023 in what he termed “FX subsidy losses which went exclusively to private pockets.

“Under Tinubu’s administration, foreign reserves rose from $3.99 billion in 2023 to $23.11 billion in 2024, while over $10 billion was used to clear external obligations, including debts to international airlines.

“Nigeria is no longer on the IATA list of countries with blocked funds. This was possible due to increased FX liquidity.

“This administration is cleaning up the mess it inherited, including from individuals like Mr. Amaechi, who now seek to play the saint”.