Former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has dismissed insinuations that he promised to return abandoned property to Igbos residing in Rivers State.
Governor Nyesom Wike while hitting out at his predecessor last week, had accused Amaechi of stoking ethnic rivalry by promising to return abandoned lands in the state to the Igbo community.
But Amaechi in a rebuttal denied saying anything returning property or about compensation on abandoned properties to the Igbos in Rivers State.
“We are astonished that even the respected Rivers State Council of Traditional Rulers fell for the false story and fake news been propagated by the Rivers State Governor without making any effort to clarify what Amaechi actually said; yet they went ahead to address the media, castigating and condemning the immediate past Rivers State Governor on the basis of a fake, ill-conceived story obviously concocted by the current failed Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.“We would ordinarily not respond to these kind of comments deliberately twisted by the rarely sober Governor Wike and his agents of wickedness and mischief who Rivers people and Nigerians know trade in divisive fake news, to malign the person and character of Amaechi. For record purposes, we hereby state the fact as it is: “That Amaechi did not and have never said anything about compensation on abandoned properties to the Igbos in Rivers State.He explained that he only repeated his old time apology, explaining to the group that he had been in power at the time, he would not have let that happened.
The former governor added that he only mentioned compensation when he spoke about people who are being intimidated, harassed and threatened with violence due to their choice of voting and support for the APC in the upcoming Governorship and State Assembly election.
