Former Rivers State Governor and ex-Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has claimed he played a more significant role than President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the emergence of late former President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential election.
Amaechi made the remarks during an appearance on Arise Television’s Prime Time programme on Friday while addressing long-standing claims by Tinubu that he was chiefly responsible for Buhari’s rise to power.
Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, Tinubu had repeatedly stated that Buhari would not have become president without his political support, insisting it was therefore his own turn to lead the country.
Reacting to those claims, Amaechi said he deliberately kept silent at the time because he was serving as a minister in Buhari’s administration and could not openly challenge Tinubu without risking his position in government.
According to him, speaking against such assertions while serving under Buhari would have been politically dangerous.
Amaechi argued that he was at the forefront of the struggle that eventually brought the All Progressives Congress to power in 2015, stressing that his role went beyond being Director-General of Buhari’s campaign.
He said he mobilised support across the country through the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and actively campaigned for what the opposition then described as “change.”
The former minister maintained that many party stakeholders could attest to the efforts he made in building support for Buhari ahead of the election.
Amaechi served as Director-General of Buhari’s presidential campaigns in both 2015 and 2019 and was among the influential political figures involved in the coalition and defections that strengthened the APC before the 2015 polls.
However, Tinubu was also widely recognised as one of the architects of the APC merger, having led the alliance involving major opposition blocs, including the Action Congress of Nigeria, which helped the party defeat the then-ruling Peoples Democratic Party under former President Goodluck Jonathan.
Amaechi’s comments come as he continues to position himself ahead of the 2027 presidential race under the African Democratic Congress coalition, while intensifying criticism of the Tinubu administration over the country’s economic challenges.
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