In this interview with Weekend Trust, former Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, a key figure in the opposition coalition’s newly adopted African Democratic Congress (ADC), addresses concerns over the ambitions of several political heavyweights, including himself. He discusses what the party must do to prevent those ambitions from becoming an albatross, among other issues. Excerpts:

Many of you have now moved to the ADC, and several are potential presidential aspirants. Don’t you think this might become the coalition’s biggest albatross?

Well, what we agreed in principle—and I must say there is a need to lay the cards on the table— what we agreed is that whoever emerges from a transparent primary will be supported by everyone. But first, we need to sit down and define what we mean by “transparent.” Because it’s easy for someone to hijack the process and still call it transparent.

As it stands, the process is in the hands of the chairman and the secretary—people we all trust. They’re not easily swayed; nobody can manipulate them. We dare the APC to produce that kind of party leadership. So what we have done already is to show the public the kind of quality of leadership that we have.

So, when the time comes and we will see how they design the structure for a transparent process. When we finish that transparent primary, whoever emerges as candidate will get the support of the rest.

 What if it doesn’t turn out that way?

Well, that’s the problem. What the party must do is to ensure it turns out that way. We did it in the APC, it was open. The whole world watched it live. No hanky-panky. There were no secret documents. Everything was open. We counted the ballots in the open. Those who are not delegates were not allowed into the venue. You knew who was a delegate and who wasn’t.

If I were the chairman, I would say: if you’re not a delegate, please don’t come to Abuja or Lagos or wherever—don’t come wearing delegate tags or party paraphernalia.

This time, only accredited delegates will be allowed in. Each aspirant must bring their own security and keep them at the gate. Each person will be counted. When those delegates choose who the candidate will be, then we will go from there. But that’s not the focus for all of us now. The focus for now is how do we build the platform.

We are not even building a party; we’re trying to putting the people together against the bandits. And the election will be the between the president and the bandits on one hand vs the people.

While hunger is widely acknowledged as a serious and pervasive problem, many Nigerians are questioning whether the coalition is merely exploiting it as a political excuse—another attempt just to capture power and take the people on a wild goose chase. Their concern is that most of you leading this new alliance have held power at various times over the past 25 years. What assurance do Nigerians have that this isn’t just the same old faces recycling the same old problems?

That’s why I say, judge me by my record. I was Speaker—one of the best this country has had. The American government used to invite me. I even chaired the Mississippi Consulate for International Development at one point.

But let’s even leave my time as Speaker. When I became governor, I made sure we delivered on real projects. We built modern health centres—real ones, not political signboards. I employed doctors. When I came in, Rivers State had only 200 doctors. By the time I left, we had 600. Each health centre had at least one doctor and two nurses.

Our focus was maternal mortality. When I came, we ranked second worst. By the time we left, it was no longer an issue. We didn’t just build roads—we made them accessible. But what good are roads when people can’t afford to eat?

Security? We didn’t just carry guns. We tackled poverty first. We created jobs. We established industries and farms. People started working. We built schools and health centres. And they were free. Parents didn’t need to borrow money to treat their children or send them to school.

Every health centre had a doctor—day or night. We also provided ambulances. If your condition was beyond the centre’s capacity, you were moved immediately to the next facility.

After fixing primary health care, we moved to secondary. We built primary and secondary schools—and we had started building universities before we left and Wike asked them to return the money. Even for electricity, we moved the state’s generation capacity from 450MW to 750MW. We applied for a distribution licence, but the federal government under President Goodluck Jonathan didn’t approve it.

People also talk about our overseas scholarship scheme. I made sure poor children, not just the rich, had access. Each local government had 20 percent reserved. Another 20 percent was for “non-indigenes”—children whose parents lived and paid tax in Rivers. If you’ve lived in the state, schooled here, why can’t the state train you?

And on security?

We dealt with insecurity by dealing with poverty. Government allowed me, they gave me 300–400 police officers that we sent to Israel for training. That’s why you didn’t see random checkpoints in Rivers like you do in Abuja. Our checkpoints had shelter. One officer would stand by the roadside, observing. If they said “park,” you knew something was wrong. That’s how we caught kidnappers. In under six months, we wiped them out.

Back to the coalition. In the last coalition, we knew your candidate early in the person of former President Muhammadu Buhari. You had a candidate people could easily rally round and it was easy for the party to market him. By this time next year, we will be talking about party primaries, but no clear candidate that can be rallied round by Nigerians. Isn’t that a problem?

Even when Buhari came out, we didn’t all agree at once. What happened was that the governors had taken a stand. They felt Buhari had the momentum: he had convinced us that he was anti-corruption, he had convinced us that he had 12 million votes and we are running against an incumbent, this was an easy candidate to sell because Nigerians already believe him. We had to convince others not to run— Bukola Saraki, Tambuwal. But Kwankwaso and Atiku said they will run and we didn’t stop them and leave it for the people to choose. So, it wasn’t as if we all said it must be Buhari just that the governors had clearly indicated where they are going.

Now, there are no governors driving the coalition, and that makes things different. Back then, I was Chairman of the Governors’ Forum, and I attended every presidential aspirant’s lunch because I had attended that of Buhari’s—so the governors made me attend everyone’s. This time, no such structure.

That time, the election was between two elites but this time it’s directly between the people and President Tinubu. 

Has your coalition come to the agreement on zoning the presidential ticket to either north or south? And if zoned to the south, will you agree to a one-term presidency? 

If that’s the agreement of the coalition and if that’s the wish of Nigerians. One of the problems with the PDP was the president at the time (Goodluck Jonathan) broke the one-term promise. That led to instability. Even if he had won, there would have been dire consequences. The North would’ve resisted it. And those of us who love Nigerians didn’t want Nigeria to burn, so why will I go against such an agreement. You remember, I was not among the governors who supported President Goodluck Jonathan. So, I don’t think Nigerians will begin to wonder whether I will do one term or not.

Secondly, Nigerians know my character. Let any politician who says he is as honest as myself, let him come out. People know my stance from afar. They accuse me of being brash and arrogant. It’s because you can’t be honest and not be blunt. I’m not perfect, but 80 percent of the time, I speak my mind. If I commit to one term, I will do one term. If I will do eight years, I will say I will do eight years. But for the sake of the stability of this country, people like us, if I run, I won’t do more than one term

Finally, North or South?

[Laughs] I’m not the party.