The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, has said that he didn’t join politics because he wanted to be a leader or because he wanted to solve Nigeria’s problems but because of unemployment.
Mr. Amaechi said this during an interview with Punch on Sunday. Find below excerpts of the interview:
“That was a long time ago, so I cannot really recall what happened. I was very young then. I left the university at the age of 20/21. It was just a radical life in terms of what I believed in and I still believe in those things till now anyway. I believe that the poor are not properly represented by the government – whether it is this current administration or the ones before it. The poor are still here and I doubt if they would ever go away. What happens is that the elite – whether the capitalists or socialists – must manage them in such a way that they can be provided for.”
“My father was a politician. He ran for councillorship during his time. However, I didn’t join politics because I wanted to be a leader or because I wanted to solve Nigeria’s problems. I joined because of unemployment. I also believe there is a part that grace played in it.”
“I actually got auditioned at the Nigeria Television Authority to be a broadcaster. I recall that I walked into their office then and said I wanted to see a certain person. But the person I met asked me if I had been auditioned because I had a wonderful voice. I told him I hadn’t and he asked for me to be auditioned. However, before the employment letter came, I was already into politics. That saved me. I would have been a broadcaster by now.”
“I joined politics in the university. My father actually wanted me to study Law. A lot of people don’t know that he named me ‘Rotimi’ after the famous lawyer, Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams. My father never met him (Williams) but he admired FRA’s larger-than-life persona and the fact that he was a brilliant lawyer. So, my father believed that I would be a lawyer and I should be able to do as well as FRA. Unfortunately, it was difficult to get admission to study Law.”
“The first admission offer I got was to study Secretarial Administration and we all laughed over that at home. At that time, in addition to the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, I also wrote an exam to get into the Rivers State University of Science and Technology. I had even started registration as a student of RSUT before I was offered admission (through UTME) to study English Studies and Literature at the University of Port Harcourt. I applied to study English at UNIPORT because the school had no law faculty then.”
“However, I have no regrets studying English Studies and Literature because it is all-encompassing. I would be glad if any of my children or those of my friends decide to study English. Most people think English Studies is about grammar but that isn’t so. There is an English language department in English Studies. I read Literature.”
“In the study of Literature, the society is presented to one like a mirror and one interprets what one sees. I can tell you why you behave the way you do even though I’m not a psychologist. I can interpret society the way it is. I can make decisions based on my knowledge of society, and I got a lot of that from studying Literature.”
“I would have loved to become a broadcaster or a lawyer. If I didn’t go into politics, I would have gone on to study Law. Though how good a lawyer I would have made, I cannot tell.”
“Nigerian politics is not something one would want one’s child to go into because there are no rules. One can be easily destroyed. One must have the grace to survive. I don’t know if he has that grace (and I’m not talking about tact or sagacity) to survive because it is a man-eat-man world.”
“You can see what is going on in Rivers State now– young men, who God used one to help rise in politics are now turning against one. If God wasn’t by my side, I may not have been standing till now. There is a lot of betrayal and I don’t know if he can survive that because he literally grew up in Europe. One has to be a hard man to survive the betrayals in Nigerian politics. Imagine someone you used to sleep on the same bed with and have given both financial and political assistance to selling you out because of his ambition. One of them said he helped make me! Meanwhile, when we were in court, he wasn’t there with us; he ran away. Meanwhile, these are men that used to literally prostrate themselves on the floor for me. But because I’m a simple man, I always told them not to do all that. I told them they should only do that for God and not for people like us. So I ask myself, can my son withstand these intrigues?”