Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi may have ruled himself out of vying for the presidency in 2023.
Amaechi, who was the Director-General of the Buhari/Osinbajo Campaign Organisation in 2015 and 2019, spoke in an interview with Daily Trust.
He was reacting to reports that he attended a secret meeting in Taraba State where he allegedly kick-started his 2023 presidential race.
Asked if he planned to vie for the 2023 presidency, Amaechi said, “I am a minister and I don’t want to get sacked until the president is satisfied that I should go.
“Anyone that said I was in Taraba for a meeting is lying. I got to Taraba by accident through a friend whose daughter was wedding. I went there and came back. Mischievously, one of the Nigerian newspapers wrote that I went for a political meeting.
“I like the way Muslims organise their weddings. Five minutes, it was over, 10 minutes we were eating and in 30 minutes, we were at the airport. How can a political meeting take place in 30 minutes? The event was so well organised. After the event, a vehicle took us back to the airport.”
Asked of his 2023 plans, the minister simply said, “I will sleep.”
Pressed on what he’d do after waking, Amaechi said, “I will do a PhD programme. I have a master’s degree and I am doing a Law programme at the Baze University, so when I wake up I will do my PhD to teach in a university.”
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Amaechi also addressed insinuations that the All Progressives Congress (APC) might not exist beyond 2023 because it was brought together because of interest.
“No problems, the next interest will bring us back together. The problem is that there are no strong political platforms for elections in Nigeria. You must deal with the issue of ideology, the same thing with the PDP. The party is a conglomeration of businesspeople who wanted to capture power and get wealth and they produced a lot of Nigerian rich men through that. The APC is a conglomeration of Nigeria’s opposition group that wanted to capture power, they did that, so, why did you think it will not continue?
“In Nigeria and most political platforms, it is interest that is permanent, not friendship. If the interest is that we must capture power, it has not waned. So, I don’t see the APC disintegrating as a party. There will be cracks and disagreement, but they will still be together until a time when Nigerians will say they no longer want us,” the transport minister said.