AMAECHI SAYS HE HAVE HUGE RESPECT FOR JONATHAN

 
Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, on Tuesday, said the present war against insurgency will not stop unless the Federal Government was ready to tackle it head-on, saying the Federal Government institutions have stolen all the money meant for human and infrastructural development in the country.

 This is as the governor denied any rift with President Goodluck Jonathan, saying: “We are not quarrelling, we just have disagreement on how to govern the country. I have huge respect for him. He is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and he should be the only person to tell us how to bring Chibok girls back.”

 Amaechi, who indicted the Presidency of inciting Muslims and Christians against one another in an attempt to win election by all means come 2015, stated this when he featured on a Kaduna-based Liberty Radio weekly programme, ‘Guest of the week’.

According to him, until the Federal Government is ready to first, tackle the underline factors, which include corruption, education and poverty, ending the insurgency would continued to be a mirage. According to him, ‘if the Federal Government could support military through intelligence gathering, which has helped in combating militancy in Rivers State and other states in the region, it would be a good beginning to end the menace. 

He added that there was the need for the government to work with everybody, especially the locals in order to know who and where the insurgents live, reiterating that it was the failure of the government in the first place.

Meanwhile  Using the Niger-Delta militancy as a case study, he said, “It took me just two months to deal with militancy in Port Harcourt and if a state could achieve that within that space of time, how much more the Federal Government that has everything it needed at its disposal.

The earlier the Federal Government stops inciting Muslims against Christians in order to win election, the better for Nigeria. “Killing militants was not the solution to the militancy. So we began with infrastructure and give them economic livelihood because when they know that when they go out, they earn some money, they will not have time to perpetrate evil of this magnitude.