The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has attributed his problem with former President Goodluck Jonathan to
illegal and excess deduction from the federation account during the administration of the then President. Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State made the revelation in the book, ‘Against the Run of Play’ written by the Chairman of ThisDay Editorial Board, Olusegun Adeniyi.
In the book, Adeniyi quoted Amaechi as saying, “If in one year, you took about N300bn from the federation account to pay for subsidy and the next year, you are taking almost N2tn for the same thing when fundamentals had not changed, then serious questions should be asked.
“And as NGF (Nigerian Governors Forum) chairman, it was my responsibility to ask those questions and Jonathan took them personal.”
Reacting to claims by Jonathan saying he, Amaechi, had issues with the former First Lady, Patience Jonathan, Amaechi said his “only sin” was that he refused to surrender his mandate to the former First Lady.
“Jonathan told me that Amaechi’s problem was not with him but rather with his wife and that, at a point, he tried to reconcile them,” Adeniyi quoted Jonathan as saying.
But, in his response, Amaechi said, “I could not surrender my mandate to a woman (Patience) in Abuja, even if such a person was the wife of the President…that basically was my sin with Dame Patience Jonathan.”
