Amaechi Berates Obi, Says Igbo’ll Not Get Presidency – TheNigerialawyer

* FG to deploy $195m maritime security equipment

The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi yesterday in
Lagos berated the vice presidential candidate of the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 election, Mr. Peter Obi over
Obi, for his response to his (Amaechi) comment on Igbo quest for
the presidency in 2023.

Speaking at a meeting with maritime stakeholders, Amaechi stated
that as someone who has been in politics for a long time he
understands that a region must play national politics to make a
claim to the presidency.

According to him, “You can’t just come and say give us the
presidency; you don’t want to fight for it, you just want us to
wake up and say, ‘wake up from sleep take it.’ It does not work
like that and it will not work like that; it will not. And let
Peter Obi close his mouth because he lost an election; I won an
election. He can’t talk; we won, that is why President Buhari will
be sworn in tomorrow (today) and not Atiku. If you ask my son now,
‘what is in the history of Nigeria? He will say President Buhari
won in 2015 when it was almost impossible – led by me and Peter Obi
was on the other side. In 2019, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
thought it was almost impossible; we also won again. What is Peter
Obi’s anger now? Beg him to leave me alone; let’s face more
important things.”

Addressing maritime stakeholders, he assured them that
insecurity in Nigeria’s waters will be a thing of the past when the
$195 million maritime security approved by President Muhammadu
Buhari is fully deployed.

Specifically, he said, “I am here to tell you how far we have
gone with the $195 million maritime security contract that the
president and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved for the
nation’s maritime security. You are aware that the situation is
very bad now; the maritime sector in terms of security the
president is aware of it, but what we showed to the stakeholders is
that the equipment we need to combat this threat in the maritime
sector is not off-the-shelf equipment. We are buying two
helicopters, two planes, three vessels that you can almost call
like a war vessel but it is not, 19 interceptors, which is fast
speed boats that has the capacity to go to the delta.

“Part of the problem we have is that most of the vessels we have
can’t go through the creeks because of how shallow the water is.
What we are buying can go through the creeks. We have shown the
stakeholders and deployment will start in June this year; the
impact of that deployment we cannot explain because not all the
equipment are in place but we will start in June to see how we can
stop these criminals from converting our waters into a theatre of
war.

We think that between June and first quarter of 2020, we would
have completed deployment, then you can hold us responsible for any
crime that takes place in the water. At that point we would have
finished training of our personnel led by the Nigerian Navy because
the equipment will be manned by the navy. The Army, police, air
force, DSS and NIMASA are also involved in the effort to rid our
waters of criminals. “

Subscribe ToNairalaw News!