Amaechi to FT: Jonathan wants me out of office because of 2015

Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi  has taken his battle against President Goodluck Jonathan  to the international media.

The governor in an interview with  the Financial Times of London, accused the President of of turning the Peoples Democratic Party into a 'one-man show' and of condoning 'impunity and authoritarianism' in an effort to ensure re-election in 2015.

The governor, who in a recent event in Port Harcourt, attributed his travails in the hands of Jonathan's acolytes  to his fight for the retrieve oil wells stolen from  Rivers State from Bayelsa State, President's home state, had a different story to tell this time.

Amaechi said that the President and his wife, Patience, were bent on removing him from office.

According to him, the root cause of his problem is is the perceived  fear in the Presidency  that whoever  was in charge of  the Nigeria Governor's Forum had the capacity to influence  the presidential election in 2015.

Amechi said, 'There is this fear in the Presidential Villa that whoever chairs the governors' forum will influence the presidential election,' Amaechi  told FT in Port Harcourt on Tuesday.

In a report posted by FT on Sunday, he alleged that  'what has happened has been engineered to the point where the President and his wife are trying to remove me from office.'

'We are seeing  an absence of law and order that can breed anarchy. It seems those at Federal Government level are not interested in democracy, but impunity and authoritarianism. The President needs to check this,'  the governor added.

Amaechi  also told  the FT that he had not decided on his plans for 2015. He said that efforts by some in the PDP leadership to claim that he had lost the governors' forum vote, despite him obtaining 19 votes to his challenger's (Jonah Jang of Plateau State) 16, was a concerning sign ahead of  2015.

'If they can accept 16 over 19, people should be worried,' he said.

But spokesman for the President, Reuben Abati,   denied that Jonathan  and his wife  were in any way involved in  Amaechi's travails.

'This is all local Rivers politics,'  Abati  said. 'It's convenient to drag the President into this, but it is not true. All these allegations are baseless.'