Between Ibe Kachikwu and Rotimi Amaechi

By Abraham Ogbodo  

On the whole, nothing had significantly changed about Rotimi Amaechi. He was still himself; unable to contract his expansive ego onto a back seat and listen to others speak sensibly in Uyo last week. He used the occasion of the Town Hall Meeting in Uyo to discuss the perennial issues in Niger Delta to open his dry advocacy on the Maritime University in Okerenkoko, Delta State, and state, with all the emphasis he could bring to bear, why the university must remain scrapped.

*Rotimi Amaechi

Not one to retrace his step no matter the inappropriateness of his locus, Amaechi explained that the development of the institution is overpriced and that the cost of acquiring land alone for the university, which he puts at N13 billion could buy half of the city of Lagos. The accompanying sarcasm only helped to underscore his contempt for a facility, which he termed wasteful and does not in any way add to the resolution of the larger issues in the Niger Delta. He was characteristically sanctimonious, finding the point about budget and prudence stronger than the overall purpose of a university.

“I am not against the Maritime University, Okerenkoko. My argument about Okerenkoko is that the land alone is N13 billion. If you give me N13 billion, I will buy half of Lagos. That N13 billion has built the university already. What to do: let the EFCC retrieve the money and release the money (to us). If they bring the N13 billion, I will build the university for them,” Amaechi said with a magisterial finality.

Like a jester in a typical Shakespearean setting, I am sure, Amaechi only meant to amuse the Uyo audience and nothing more. But things just got terribly out of hand because he refused to act as a true jester who usually knows when to perform and when to hold back.

Altogether, I do not think that the Uyo town hall was a comic interlude in the fast-pacing Niger Delta drama for some jester to perform. I mean, here was a platform to discuss the very serious issues of the day, including the serial bombing of oil infrastructure by a new militant group, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA), that has caused crude oil production to plummet from 2.4 to 1.2 million barrels per day. And here also was an Amaechi, a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and former governor of the oil rich State of Rivers proclaiming a financial wizardry that could make him buy half of Lagos (not Lagos Street in Port Harcourt) with N13 billion or establish a functional maritime university in the swamp of the Niger Delta with all the attendant ecological challenges.

Amaechi was joking, no doubt, but he chose the wrong time to joke. People don’t crack jokes when serious business is still going on. The Uyo town hall was not a relaxation joint for jokes. And this was underscored when Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Dr. Ibe Kachikwu took the stage. He created a tonal and content variation that unmasked Amaechi as a flat character, suited only for flat roles. Kachikwu returned the discussions to serious mode.