Former Minister of Transportation and former Governor of Rivers State,
Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi has denied any involvement in the N750billion
fraud at the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.
Pointblanknews.com had exclusively reported how senior officials in NDDC
allegedly nominated by Amaechi have stolen about N750billion through
phony contracts, contract splitting, over invoicing and other schemes.
Already, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has
confirmed the infractions and has commenced investigations into the
allegations of massive fraud and looting in the Commission.
The anti-graft agency, in its move to forestall further diversion of
funds, blocked any payments instruction from the accounts of NDDC to
accounts of corporate bodies domiciled in commercial banks until further
notice.
“It is a cesspool of corruption and I can confirm the authenticity of
the letter to the Banks to stop payment instructions from NDDC. Our men
have commenced investigation, Tony Orilade, Spokesman of the EFCC told
Pointblanknews.com.
But the former Governor of Rivers state and a staunch supporter of
President Buhari denied any wrongdoing or involvement in the corruption
in EFCC.
In a statement sent to pointblanknews.com, Amaechi described reports
linking him to the fraud in NDDC as a “smear and fake news.”
Amaechi’s statement reads:
We have uncovered a well-oiled plot to orchestrate a heavily funded
smear campaign of calumny and lies against Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi
Amaechi, the immediate past minister of Transportation, immediate past
governor of Rivers State and two-time Director-General of the President
Muhammadu Buhari Presidential Campaign.
As we write this, we are aware that attempts are been made to peddle all
sorts of fictitious, misleading and outrightly concocted stories,
distorted and manipulated documents that would smudge the image and cast
aspersions on the character, integrity and high morals of Amaechi, an
astute and accomplished public servant.
The deceitful plot and plan of the planners and executors of this
ominously funded campaign is to tarnish the towering status; and do as
much damage as possible to the character and reputation of Amaechi in
the hearts, minds and eyes of members of the public, using both
traditional and online (social) media.
One aspect of the reprehensible conspiracy is to unscrupulously drag the
name of Amaechi and a member of his immediate family into the internal
affairs and operations of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC)
in a manner and way that is designed and intended to bring disrepute and
opprobrium to his character and reputation. Besides this, there are
other aspects and dimensions to the plot to rubbish Amaechi’s image.
In respect to the NDDC, the defamation campaigners intend to create,
make and push to the public space all sorts of speculative and baseless
allegations against Amaechi; from the ridiculous, to the puerile and
completely bizarre stories backed with distorted, phony and fake
documents. For clarity, we state emphatically, that Chibuike Rotimi
Amaechi is not involved in anyway, in the management and operations of
the NDDC.
We wish to alert members of the public of the hawking presence and
devious plots of these ‘operation destroy’ Amaechi campaigners.
Specifically, we want to notify and appeal to both traditional media and
online (social) media practitioners to be wary of the insidious
shenanigans of these purveyors and hawkers of fake news that is solely
intended to deceive the public and destroy the sterling record of many
years of meritorious public service by Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi.
RT. HON. CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI MEDIA OFFICE
JUNE 27, 2019