Amaechi Spent N82m Organizing Dinner For Soyinka, Yet Couldn’t Pay Salaries – Rivers Government

SAN FRANCISCO, January 06, (THEWILL) – It seems the allegations thrown at the former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, by his successor are yet to abet as the Rivers state Government on Tuesday expressed shock that Amaechi, who is now the Minister of Transportation, can expend N82 m in hosting the Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, to a three-hour dinner at a time he failed to pay salaries as Governor.

Disclosing this to newsmen at the Government House in Port Harcourt, the Commissioner for Information and Communication in the state, Dr. Austin-Tam George, said the figure was stumbled upon in the handover note prepared by the former Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Information and Communication under the Amaechi administration.

According to him, “A government did not pay salaries, closed the courts, but the administration had the temerity to expend N82m to fund a dinner for Soyinka.

“These are facts on ground. The Amaechi administration expended the money under the heading of borrowed funds.

“There is a massive propaganda machine out there misinforming the people about the policy direction of Governor Wike's administration. They have to respect the will of the people. Instead, they go about spreading falsehood against the people of the state,” the information commissioner said.

He consequently charged journalists to emphasize the developmental strides of Governor Nyesom Wike with facts because the state was currently dealing with a “disastrous legacy of abandoned projects” bequeathed to it by the Amaechi administration.

George, who noted that the Wike administration was facing a combination of “85 per cent information war” and “ political fundamentalism”, accused the All Progressives Congress, APC, of seeking to establish a “political caliphate” in Rivers State by installing Dakuku Peterside who he called a fake political candidate of the party.

He dismissed those claiming that Wike's government was serving only Ikwerre interests as talking “anthropological nonsense”, stressing that the Governor is running an all-inclusive government of indigenes from the 23 local government areas of Rivers State.