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.
