The Daily Mail, a British national daily on Sunday cited an exclusive report by SIGNAL on how former Governor of Rivers State and President Muhammadu Buhari’s Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi reportedly diverted over N40 billion into Buhari’s presidential campaign in 2015 and how he has managed to evade prosecution even after being indicted by a Rivers State Judicial Panel of Enquiry.
According to the SIGNAL report, which was published on January 7, 2016, “The sum of N6 billion was single-handedly provided by Amaechi to support President Buhari for the APC presidential primaries alone. The N6 billion largesse Amaechi donated to Buhari just for the primaries alone is what was partly spent settling over 8,000 APC delegates. Buhari outspent Atiku, Kwankwaso and the other aspirants. Delegates were settled in hard currency before and on the grounds of the primaries. Seven bullion vans brought Amaechi’s money into the arena of the APC presidential primaries. How do you think Buhari got the ticket? It was Amaechi’s money that did the job”, SIGNAL reported, quoting a source who did not want to be named.
EXCLUSIVE | How Amaechi Diverted Over N40 Billion Into Buhari’s Presidential Campaign
Furthermore, the SIGNAL report stated: “Amaechi was the one spending most of the money for media, for a US consultant hired by the APC and most of the private jets and vehicles used by APC during the campaign were provided by him. That’s why he became known even within his party’s circles as the ‘ATM’”.
Citing SIGNAL’s report on Sunday, Daily Mail reports about Amaechi, “In the Nigerian press he has been dubbed ‘ATM’ – the American term for cash machine – because of his ability to produce vast sums of money at short notice. He remains in his post despite being accused of misappropriating £338million by a commission investigating the sale of state assets. Separately, Amaechi is accused of diverting £140million of state funds into Buhari’s presidential campaign, with reports he paid for media, consultants and private jets.”
Rotimi Amaechi travelled with President Muhammadu Buhari to the recently concluded Anti-Corruption Summit in London. While the former Governor of the oil-rich Rivers State continues to deny the allegations of graft leveled against him, his party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has maintained there isn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute him.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron was caught on camera last week before the summit describing Nigeria as ‘fantastically corrupt’. 24 hours later, President Buhari told as Sky News Reporter on global television that Cameron was correct.
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Es3
May 23, 2016 at 1:18 pm
A clear evidence and confirmation of Buhari/APC witch-hunt of PDP in the name of fighting corruption, is the instance of looking the other way on Amaechi’s clear case of corruption.