ABUJA-MINISTER of Transportation, Mr Chibuike Amaechi has reacted to
blackmail reports against him, especially as he has asked an
unidentified blackmailer to go to hell for asking him to pay him N5
million, saying he was too busy to attend to such a frivolity.
It
will be recalled that in September last year; a blackmailer had
requested that the Minister pay a total sum of N5m to stop a particular
story against the backdrop that he, Amaechi did not attend to him.
The
yet to be identified blackmailer who called one of the Minister’s
friends to demand for a ransom of 5 million naira, days after the
Minister had a private meeting with journalists covering the Ministry,
continued with his threats to Amaechi that he would go public if he did
not respond to him.
A close source of the Ministry told Vanguard
that the Minister was angry with reporters assigned to the Ministry
over the private discussions that had become a source of blackmail from
one of the reporters.
The said meeting was meant for assigned
reporters of the Ministry but several other journalists from print,
television, bloggers and online media found their ways into the meeting.
Ameachi who was apparently betrayed over a friendly meeting
where nothing was expected to be published, cut off from reporters in
the Ministry for three months.
The balckmailer has been
blackmailing the minister to pay for the recording or else he
(blackmailer) was ready to quote him out of context and make the whole
world discredit the Minister’s loyalty to the President.
On the
issue that Mr. President does not read, Amaechi was actually stressing
the fact that the President is focused on building infrastructures and
does not care about all the negative things people write to distract him
from his mandate.
“And come to think of it, the President does
not have all the time to read the entire write up by journalists that is
why he has a media aide. Our President is not an ordinary citizen.”
His
real statement was, “Corruption is a problem in Nigeria. The problem is
that everybody wants free money but one good thing is that under this
administration there is no free money at all and people are not happy
about that.
“One of my friends once told me that the solution to
fighting corruption is to gather all the corrupt Nigerians and throw
them into an ocean. This is because corruption has eaten deep into the
fabrics of our society, everybody wants the easy way and you all know
that when things like this have remained for a long time, it will not be
easy to fight against.”
Share your thoughts