RIVERS State governor, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has finally spoken up on the disagreement between him and the wife of the president, Dame Patience Jonathan, adding that he has enormous respect for President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife.
Governor Amaechi spoke Friday while hosting Niger Delta Bishops’ Forum in Port Harcourt, saying that the perceived disagreement was borne out of his administration’s effort at providing a conducive learning environment for school children in Okrika, Mrs Jonathan’s country home.
The governor, however, prayed that the clergy men’s efforts at bringing peace and understanding back in his relationship with the first family would be fruitful, noting that earlier attempts failed mysteriously.
It would be recalled that the bishops had some weeks back visited the First Lady and minister of state for education, Nyesom Wike in Abuja as part of their efforts to resolve the issues
Amaechi said: “My lords, I don’t know what to say, believe me, the only thing I want to say to you is that and I want to be put on record that the wife of the President said when my wife came to beg me, I pushed her away. I have never quarrelled with my wife publicly, and I will never quarrel with my wife publicly. So there is no time I pushed my wife away, and there is no time I will push my wife away. I just want to correct that so that nobody goes away with the impression that somebody told my wife ‘go and talk to your husband, she came and I pushed her away’. No, that day I simply walked away into a bus and I sat down until they finished. So all I did was go back to the bus to enable my wife perform her official function of someone who had received the wife of the President and escort her to all the places she wanted to go to.
“I hope that it (this mediation) will work. Niger Delta monarchs came and no result came out of it and since you are men of God I hope that this one God will bless it. I hope so because that is the same way I spoke to them (the monarchs) and they said, ‘watch out, it will work’, and they never returned because it never worked. There are so many persons who had come to mediate but nothing came out of it. If it is peace that everybody wants, I am ready.” for peace. When you say you are seeking for permission, I am wondering why, because if you did not have the permission you would not have gone to see the wife of the President. The mere fact that you have seen the wife of the President means that you have initiated the peace move, so you don’t require any further approval than the approval of God that you have started with.”
“There are aspects of the story that is public that I need to correct. Lord Bishops please allow me correct those ones too because when you spoke with the wife of the President she spoke publicly. She said and I conceded to her when she said she is my mother. As wife of the President, who is the head of government and head of the nation, she is my mother and you expect that as my mother she should be able to protect her son. No mother takes away a Police Commissioner to the detriment of her son, so when next you see my mother, please tell her that she should try and protect her son.”
Source: Tribune
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