Former Rivers State Governor and ex-Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has taken a swipe at Nigeria’s current state governors, accusing them of lacking the courage to confront President Bola Tinubu and failing to hold the federal government accountable.
Amaechi made the remarks on Tuesday in Abuja during the public presentation of former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido’s autobiography, Being True To Myself.
Speaking at the event, Amaechi — who chaired the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) during Lamido’s second term — lamented what he described as the governors’ passivity and silence in the face of national issues. He said things were drastically different during their time in office.
“I asked you [Lamido] this morning what is happening now in Nigerian politics — would it have happened when we were governors? You said no. And I agree. The answer is no,” Amaechi declared.
“We would have confronted the government, we would have confronted the president. That’s how radical you were. That’s how our Governors Forum functioned. We were determined to challenge the status quo and bring about change.”
He described the current governors as lacking courage, calling them “men without balls,” and urged Lamido not to forget the battles they jointly fought as governors, noting he would be making a personal contribution to the memoir as “one radical to another.”
Amaechi also reflected on his pivotal role in the defection of six PDP governors to the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2015 general elections — a move that ultimately contributed to the defeat of then-President Goodluck Jonathan.
Despite his instrumental role in the APC’s rise to power, Amaechi’s relationship with the party — and with President Tinubu — has since soured. After serving two terms as minister under President Muhammadu Buhari, his attempt to clinch the APC presidential ticket in 2023 ended in defeat, with Tinubu winning by a wide margin.
Since then, Amaechi has distanced himself from the APC leadership and has emerged as a vocal critic of the Tinubu administration, surprising many who once saw him as a close ally of the president during their joint opposition to the PDP era.
