Former governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has cleared the air on the meeting with the then opposition figures, held with American officials, saying it was only to press for a free and fair election.

There were allegations that the then political opponents of former President Goodluck Jonathan had pressured the Americans to ensure that the opposition defeated the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, administration, citing the Christian genocide in Nigeria.

But speaking at the National Conference of Editors, in Abuja, yesterday, the former governor, who was a key figure in the administration of late President Muhammadu Buhari, said there were no such discussions between them and the Americans.

His words, “There have been talks about some clandestine meetings in America. No, there was no meeting in America like that. There was absolutely no meeting in America like that. There was just one meeting, and we were invited to the meeting and the discussion. The question was from the Americans – look, we don’t want violence in this election and we should have trust that there would be no violence.”

Amaechi also noted that contrary to the military era, Nigerian journalists who not fighting bad governance in the civilian dispensation enough.

He said, “I have friends who are editors. I said, are these not the same people that fought with us when we were fighting? They say they are. I said, so what has changed in journalism because they’re no longer fighting, and jokingly, I said that I think there was a difference between journalists under the military and journalists in a democracy

“This thing should not continue. We played a major role before the military was chased out.

“The politicians came. Are you satisfied with the politicians? Are you okay? I have friends in the media. I told my friends the reason for their silence is that the pot is bigger. The pot under the military was smaller, and the military alone was enjoying it.

“The portions became smaller and we needed to expand the pot. If not, compared to the military, are you better off now than that time?

“Please forgive me. I think another reason, apart from the pot being large is ethnicity which has gone into politics and into what is called journalism.

“As journalists, nobody wants to write against their brother. Everybody’s enjoying, even if your brother is bad. I made a statement, I said Nigerians don’t hate bad government, is just that the bad president is from another part of the country.

“But if the bad president is from your area, he’s a wonderful man; he’s trying his best. We must, as a people, as Nigerians, agree to chase a government that is bad out of government through legitimate means of election.

“Nigeria should be a country where anybody who comes from any part of Nigeria can survive in any part of Nigeria that he goes to.

“That’s when we will become a country – when I can go to Lagos and survive in Lagos, when you can buy land in Port-Harcourt and survive in Port-Harcourt.

“Government is complaining about insecurity. You know the cause of insecurity. If you provide the people with poverty, if you don’t provide them with legitimate means of livelihood, they will provide for themselves an illegitimate means of livelihood.”

“The reason why Nigeria is like this is that they have denied the ordinary citizens the right to survive. So, if you refuse to create a legitimate means of livelihood for the citizens, they will create for themselves an illegitimate means of livelihood.” (Vanguard)