By Ogbeni Olawale Dawodu
Former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has dismissed claims by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu that he was solely responsible for the emergence of late former President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election.
Amaechi insisted that several political actors contributed to Buhari’s victory and maintained that he personally played a major role in securing the electoral win.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Friday, the former Rivers State governor said he had remained silent on Tinubu’s repeated claims while serving in Buhari’s administration because publicly challenging the narrative at the time could have cost him his position.
“When we decided to form the APC, while I was a minister, President Tinubu was claiming he made Buhari president, and I couldn’t respond because I was the minister under President Buhari,” Amaechi said.
“That will be suicidal because Buhari could fire you. So I couldn’t have said no then. He wasn’t the president. I couldn’t tell him, ‘You are wrong. You didn’t make President Buhari president.’”
Amaechi stressed that he was deeply involved in the campaign machinery that brought Buhari to power in 2015, noting that he served as director-general of the presidential campaign and coordinated nationwide political mobilisation.
“Not only was I the DG of the campaign, but everybody will bear witness that I did all the battle,” he stated.
Recalling his role during the build-up to the election, Amaechi said:
“I led the governors’ forum. I crisscrossed the country fighting here and there.”
President Tinubu has repeatedly argued that Buhari only returned to the presidential race in 2015 after he persuaded him to contest again following three failed attempts. According to Tinubu, the political coalition that later formed the All Progressives Congress (APC) was instrumental in Buhari’s eventual victory.
However, Amaechi rejected the suggestion that one individual could claim sole credit for the success of the APC and Buhari’s emergence as president.
Reflecting on the APC administration’s performance after taking power on the platform of “change,” Amaechi admitted that the government recorded mixed results.
“Did we achieve the change? Here and there. In some areas, well, we did. In some areas, we did not,” he said.
