Same forces that killed Saro-Wiwa threatened my life and Buhari’s emergence in 2015- Amaechi

Minister of Transportation and former governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has claimed that the same forces that killed the late activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa  also threatened to kill him and derail then candidate Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential bid in 2015.

It is not clear what forces Amaechi could be referring to since it is almost settled history that the late military dictator, Sani Abacha, who was long dead before the 2015 presidential election and who while alive was in fact Buhari’s ally, was the central force behind the state-sanctioned killing of Saro-Wiwa.

It is also curious that Amaechi claimed the same “machinery of power” was still active in 2015, 20 years after Saro-Wiwa’s death, 17 years after Abacha’s death, and 16 years after military rule.

Speaking on Saturday during the inauguration of a pro-All Progressives Congress (APC) Non-Governmental Organisation, Free Rivers Development Initiative (FRDI), in Bori, Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State, Amaechi said the “machinery of power” which killed Ken Saro Wiwa was still in force as at the time Buhari sought the presidency.

He said Saro Wiwa fought for the liberation of Ogoni people, South-South and the Niger Delta because he believed they were oppressed.

“Saro-Wiwa was killed by the then machinery of power because of his belief that Ogonis and the Niger Delta should be liberated,” he said.

Read also: Buhari’s presidency ‘an act of God to take Nigeria to where it should be’- Shittu

“I could have been killed by same machinery of power when we were fighting to install President Muhammadu Buhari because we fought the same power that killed Saro-Wiwa.”

According to Amaechi, some Ogoni sons and daughters found it difficult to identify with the late environmentalist but he identified with him.

“Everybody is now claiming to love Ogoni and knew Ken Saro-Wiwa because of election,” he said.

“If you love Ogoni, bring projects to Ogoni, train their children because as governor, I trained Ogoni children overseas.

“I made sure that government paid all the fees because education was one of the issues that Saro-Wiwa died for.”

Amaechi said when he was governor of Rivers, he planned to turn Bori, a community in Ogoniland, into a big city, and that was why he constructed all the internal roads in the city.

“When I became governor, there was no light in Bori and we brought light from Port Harcourt to the city,” he said.

“It was because of poverty I experienced that made me to build primary schools, primary health centres and employed teachers and doctors respectively.

“Today, the current government has reversed everything we did including free education and free healthcare care policies.”

 

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