Amaechi Says He Stepped Back from Buhari Government Over Dashed Hopes
Rotimi Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State and onetime Minister of Transportation, has given an account of how he progressively pulled back from the Muhammadu Buhari government after growing unhappy with its course.
Speaking during an interview on AIT on Wednesday night, Amaechi said he eventually obtained Buhari's approval to enrol at a university while still holding the transportation portfolio, an arrangement under which he showed up at the ministry only on Wednesdays. Excerpts from the interview were shared on Facebook.
Amaechi, who is now pursuing a 2027 presidential bid on the ADC platform, used the occasion to look back on his years in the Buhari administration and his wider political trajectory.
He recounted that his first move was to raise his concerns privately with Buhari, after he became troubled that the government was falling short of the expectations that had propelled it into office.
According to Amaechi, he reminded the then-president that Nigerians who backed the All Progressives Congress in 2015 had believed they were voting for the Buhari of 1983.
He quoted himself as asking: "Mr President, you recall that when people were voting for us, they thought they were voting for the Buhari of 1983? Mr President, are we keeping to that expectation?"
Buhari, he said, replied that conditions were no longer the same as in 1983, pointing out that he had been younger then and had governed as a military leader without a parliament.
Amaechi said he approached the president again the following day to ask for permission to attend university.
"The next day, I went back to Mr President and asked, 'Can I go to the university?' He said, 'Yes,'" Amaechi recalled.
He explained that his application made clear he would be absent from the office on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
"That's technically resigning from government. The only day I came to the office was Wednesdays," he said.
Amaechi was a central figure in the political movement that swept Buhari to power in 2015. He served two terms as Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly from 1999 to 2007, then as governor from 2007 to 2015. Between 2011 and 2013, he also chaired the Nigeria Governors' Forum.
His ties with the Peoples Democratic Party soured during the tenure of former President Goodluck Jonathan. Amaechi later switched to the APC, aligning with other governors and opposition figures in the coalition that built the party before the 2015 election.
The APC went on to name him director-general of its presidential campaign organisation for that election. In that capacity, he oversaw the campaign that unseated the ruling PDP, the first time an opposition party had taken power at the federal level through the ballot.
After Buhari's win, Amaechi entered his cabinet as transportation minister, serving until May 2022. He became one of the most visible members of that cabinet, largely through the administration's railway expansion drive. Buhari at the time portrayed the overhaul of the transport sector as part of his government's legacy.
Amaechi left the cabinet in May 2022 after announcing his intention to seek the APC presidential ticket for the 2023 election. He came second to Bola Tinubu in the party's primary.
His latest remarks on his relationship with Buhari come as he campaigns for the 2027 election under the ADC banner. He first contested the ADC presidential primary but lost to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, and was later picked as Atiku's running mate for 2027.
His account of his time under Buhari therefore sits within the wider political battle ahead of 2027, when he will be campaigning against the APC administration he once served in.
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