BREAKING: APC INTENSIFY MINISTERIAL LOBBY FOR AMAECHI...... FASHOLA MAY LOSE OUT.

BREAKING: APC INTENSIFY MINISTERIAL LOBBY FOR AMAECHI...... FASHOLA MAY LOSE OUT.

As Nigerians wait for President Muhammadu Buhari’s ministerial list, indication emerged weekend that a former Managing Director of Nigerian Breweries Limited, Mr. Festus Odumegwu and a former presidential candidate, Prof. Pat Utomi, are among the ministerial nominees.

Punch reports that their names have been screened by the Department of State Services. Surprisingly, notable names like immediate past governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Raji Fashola and APC Presidential Campaign Director during the last election, Rotimi Amaechi were missing from the much-awaited list.

According to the report, those already said to have been screened as nominees for President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet also include a former Governor of Osun State, Olagunsoye Oyinlola; a Lagos-lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), and Ifueko Omogui-Okauru.

Also on the list are a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazu (retd.); an ex-chief executive of the Federal Inland Revenue, Mrs. Ifueko Omoigui-Okaru; a former finance commissioner in Lagos State, Mr. Wale Edun; and a former National Legal Adviser to the defunct Congress for Progressive Change, Abubakar Malami (SAN).

It was gathered that the screening of the nominees had been concluded on Friday. President Buhari had earlier promised to unveil his cabinet before September 30.

The Rivers State chapter of the All Progressives Congress said on Monday that the immediate past governor of the State, Chibuike Amaechi, was clean and untainted by corruption while in office.

The party urged President Muhammadu Buhari to disregard efforts by the state governor, Nyesom Wike, to tarnish the image of the former governor.

Mr. Amaechi, who was governor between 2007 and 2015, is currently under investigation by a panel set up by Mr. Wike, who assumed office last May.

In a statement by its chairman, Davies Ikanya, the APC said if there was any former governor that was clean and spotless in Nigeria, it was Mr. Amaechi.

“Anybody who knows Amaechi well enough would readily testify that he is an honest, sincere but courageous gentleman, a first-class patriot who is ever ready to go the extra mile to see that Nigeria becomes a better place for the present and future generations,” it said.

The party condemned Mr. Wike’s alleged desperation to drag Mr. Amaechi’s name in the mud, the latest of which centres around a sponsored documentary on the former governor’s being aired on Africa Independent Television (AIT).

It said the documentary was part of Mr. Wike’s propaganda war against Amaechi for which he (Wike) had “earmarked billions of naira in the wicked plot to destroy and decimate the person and character of the former governor.”

The party claimed that other propaganda tools planned to be deployed in the war against Amaechi include sponsored publications such as advertorials, columns, editorials and OpEd articles in major international, national and local print media; sponsored personality discussion programmes in the electronic media and sponsored special documentaries for television and radio through independent groups and organisations.

It added, “This insidious plot by Wike include commissioning a team made up of persons within and outside the state to ‘initiate, formulate and contrive false damaging reports bordering on alleged corrupt practices of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and circulate same to individuals and institutions within Nigeria and abroad with a view to damaging the incorruptible character and rising profile of Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in order to blackmail and put pressure on President Buhari not to appoint the former governor into his government.

‘These cooked reports will be sent to the US Embassy, UK High Commission, EU Commission, and several international organisations such as Transparency International, amongst others.

“The forged reports will also be sent to local and foreign media houses such as the BBC [Hausa Service], Dutch Radio, VOA [Hausa Service], amongst others’ for repeated publication and airing.”

The APC also dismissed the allegations against Mr. Amaechi as a replication of the documentary terrorism Mr. Wike and the Peoples Democratic Party deployed against now-President Muhammadu Buhari during the campaigns for the 2015 general elections.

“It is not surprising that the medium for airing the documentary is the same AIT that angered decent Nigerians with documentaries that disparaged the present President of Nigeria and his family members in a failed bid to make Nigerians not to vote for him,” it said.

“The anti-Amaechi documentary is simply aimed at driving a wedge between the President and the former governor in the hope that President Buhari would be blackmailed into leaving Amaechi out of his government.”

It expressed confidence that “just as the blackmail against General Buhari was ignored by Nigerians, who massively voted for him, so, too, the President, having himself been a victim of PDP and AIT’s documentary terrorism, will also discountenance the dirt PDP and AIT are trying so hard to pour on Amaechi and accord him his right of place in the new Nigeria he staked everything, including his life, to achieve.”