Akpabio’s Uncommon Birthday Celebration

 By Ugoji Egbujo

Akpabio celebrated his birthday in a stadium. That must be a sign of his stature. The economic situation didn’t deter him. He gathered his people in tens of thousands to eat and drink. The people are poor but their leaders are rich on their behalf.

*Akpabio

A two-term governor, former minister and now senate president. It can’t get larger. Ordinarily, one government or the other would pick up the bill in recognition of his services to the nation. After all, such a political Iroko must have paid his dues. As Flavor, the musician, would say, “How much is money”? 

Rotimi Amaechi’s Glib Talk And Threat To Democracy In Rivers

 By Alabi Williams

Rotimi Amaechi, former minister and governor of Rivers State, at a public lecture on Thursday, October 26, sounded rather melancholic. For a man who has been in government since 1999, first as two-term speaker of Rivers State House of Assembly and later as governor for eight years, before he served as minister of the Federal Republic for another eight years, all on a platter, the privileges he amassed do not justify the grief he attempted to offload. And he was most unfair and incorrect as he tried to blame the polity’s woes on the people.

*Rotimi Amaechi

That same week, Port Harcourt was in turmoil as former governor Nyesom Wike vainly and desperately sought to protect a so-called political structure he claimed to have built. In a democracy, do individuals own political structures to the exclusion of the political party? And whose resources did he deploy to build the structure, Rivers’ taxpayers’ monies?