The former governor of Rivers State, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has refuted reports that he had approached Senate President, De Bukola Saraki in his house to protest the rescheduling of his screening and confirmation as minister.
Amaechi said that a report that he was furious and purportedly raised his voice to express his anger and frustration over the deferment of screening and confirmation of his ministerial nomination was aimed at portraying him in bad light.
The former governor, who spoke through a statement signed on behalf of his media office by Mr. David Iyofor, on Monday, said the allegation was an attempt to demean him in the eyes of the public.
Specifically, Amaechi pointed out that he was never at Saraki’s residence on Thursday last week and added that he would never act in any way that would put the Office of the Senate President into disrepute.
The statement said, “The report, which the respected newspaper got from ‘sources’, further claimed that during the visit of Thursday last week, Amaechi was said to have raised his voice to express his frustration before leaving the residence without seeing the Senate President.
“The imagery created in the last four paragraphs of the lead report was an angry Amaechi, who stormed the residence of Senate President Bukola Saraki, raised his voice as he made a scene or caused a ‘ruckus’ to display his frustration over the deferment of his screening by the Senate, before ‘storming out in a huff’ without seeing the Senate President.
“This is absolutely not true. There is a deliberate and carefully calibrated attempt to characterise Amaechi with a very bad and demeaning mannerism. We must clarify that Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi did not visit and was not at the residence of the Senate President on Thursday of last week.
“Since he (Amaechi) did not go to the residence of the Senate President on Thursday of last week, so, there is absolutely no way that what the newspaper sources claimed to have transpired, happened.
“We must emphasise that former Governor Amaechi holds the office of the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in very high esteem and will never disrespect or act in any way that would put the office in disrepute. However, in this case, the incident reported never occurred either on Thursday or any other day.”
The former governor, however, attributed the alleged false report to the activities of fifth columnists posing as journalists, whose aim was to malign and destroy people’s reputation.
Amaechi said, “While we understand the constraints and pressures journalists face in doing their jobs, we would advise them to be thorough and double-check or even ‘triple-check’ their sources of information.
“There seems to exist an axis of fifth columnists, masquerading as ‘sources’ to journalists. They fabricate events and stories that never happened to malign and destroy the characters and reputation of others, while fomenting acrimony and bad blood in the polity. Journalists must beware of such sources.”