Ex-Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said that he and former Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, would’ve called out President Tinubu over the country’s present state of affairs if they were still governors. He recently revealed that they were both governors who never shied away from holding the Federal Government accountable.
Speaking at the public presentation of Lamido’s autobiography, “Being True to Myself,” Rotimi revealed that their era was marked by bold opposition, and the Nigeria Governors Forum was always focused on ensuring the FG did its job.
According to Amaechi, what is going on in the country presently is nothing to write home about, and he is sure politicians like himself and Lamido would’ve confronted President Tinubu and his government if they were still in power.
“I asked you (Lamido) this morning, what is going on currently in the country, in Nigerian politics — would it have happened when we were governors? You said no. And the answer is no.
We would have confronted the government, confronted the president. That’s how radical you were. That’s how our Governors Forum operated. That’s how determined we were to change things,” he said.
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Reflecting on his political relationship with Sule, Rotimi revealed that they were allies back in the day, except for when they disagreed on how to oppose former president, Goodluck Jonathan.
The former minister shared that his only error was assuming Lamido was as radical as he was, stressing that his decision to reach out to him when it came to radical decisions was wrong.
Amaechi concluded by saying they remained very good friends in government despite disagreeing on a few political issues.
“We were quite good friends in government. We had our bad times when we disagreed. I made the mistake of assuming he was as radical as I was. So, he was one of the governors I clung to when it came to radical decisions.
The last one before we broke ranks was when we all agreed to go against President Jonathan. We formed a committee of governors and others. At the end of the day, he went to find a new party, the SDP. We said, ‘If we go to the SDP, we will lose the election. Let’s hang on to this one called the APC.’ He disagreed and left us. That’s where we parted ways,” he added.
