Quote from Ndubuisi Ekekwe on May 17, 2020, 12:37 PM

One of those accidental confessions that help us to understand! Interestingly, not many can claim they planned perfectly what they are doing today [I did not, still trying to understand why one is living outside Nigeria!). Politics to many Nigerian politicians is an industrial sector, never a call to service.  Amaechi studied English Studies and Literature in UNIPORT and might have struggled with unemployment.  So when the opportunity came via politics, he took his chances.  We hope his incentives have changed by now.

“I didn’t join politics because I wanted to be a leader or because I wanted to solve Nigeria’s problems. I joined because of unemployment. I also believe there is a part that grace played in it,” Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Transport, Nigeria

Mr Amaechi, a graduate of English Studies and Literature from the University of Port Harcourt, had his first major political break in 1999 when he was elected as a member and then speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He was re-elected to the position in 2003.

In 2007, he contested and won the party’s governorship ticket even though Celestine Omehia was declared the party’s flagbearer. The PDP won the election and Mr Omehia was sworn in as governor.

Mr Amaechi challenged Mr Omehia’s candidacy before a court and was eventually declared the rightful candidate of the PDP and winner of the April 2007 governorship election in Rivers State. He served twice as the state governor under the party before his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2013