Rotimi Amaechi, former governor of Rivers state, complained of being hungry while decrying Nigeria’s economic state.
He made this statement on Friday during his 60th birthday celebration.
Amaechi has been involved in Nigerian politics for more than 20 years. His complaint about hunger comes after he stepped back from active politics for nearly three years.
In 2022, he tried to become Nigeria’s president. He competed against the current president, Bola Tinubu, for the ruling party’s nomination. The contest happened within the All Progressives Congress (APC). Tinubu won decisively with 1,271 votes, while Amaechi came second with 316 votes.
Amaechi refused to support him despite being in the same political party as Tinubu. He did not vote for Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election.
Amaechi is a well-known figure in Nigerian politics. He served as governor of Rivers State twice, from 2007 to 2015. After his time as governor ended, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him as transportation minister.
His political career started much earlier. From 1999 to 2007, he was the speaker of the Rivers House of Assembly. He was also the first person to chair Nigeria’s conference of speakers of state assemblies.
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During his time as governor, Amaechi held additional leadership roles. He was chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum from 2011 to 2015. This is a group that brings together all state governors in Nigeria. He also trained as a lawyer and was officially called to the bar in 2024.
At his birthday event, Amaechi shared his frustrations about Nigeria. He told a story about being stopped at a German airport because of his Nigerian passport.
“We don’t want to move the country forward. My passport was seized in Germany, I did nothing. My offence is that I’m carrying a green passport. They kept me for nearly 30 minutes, and I was going for a medical check-up in Vienna. So if you’re not ashamed, I’m,” Amaechi said.
He went on to criticise both Nigeria’s leaders and its citizens.
“Nigerian elites are not the problems of Nigeria. The problems of Nigeria are the followership. There are no capitalists in Nigeria; capitalists are those with capital to invest for production. Do we produce here? I look at Nigeria and ask What are we doing here? Do we really want to be a country? What is important is: How do we change this country?
“We’re all hungry, all of us are. If you’re not hungry, I am. For us, the opposition, if you want us to remove the man in power, we can remove him from this power.
“In Nigeria, there are no capitalist ideas among the politicians; it’s about sharing.”
Amaechi believes the current government can be changed. He pointed to his history of joining protests as evidence that political change is possible. He thinks opposition parties can work together to remove Tinubu from power in the 2027 presidential election.
However, he also blamed ordinary Nigerians for the country’s problems. He said they fail to take action when government policies make their lives harder. As an example, he mentioned how people protested against fuel price increases but then did nothing when prices still went up.
