Rivers Diaries: Amaechi and wife conspicuously absent at First Lady’s event

Yesterday, Rotimi Amaechi and his wife were noticeably absent at the inauguration of the South-South Zonal Secretariat of the Women for Change and Development Initiative by the First Lady, Patience Jonathan. It is said that quite a few other officials of the state government did not attend the event.

A source in the First Lady’s camp says the governor’s wife was sent an invitation seven days before the event -


“We sent a letter of invitation for the governor and his wife across to the Government House in Port Harcourt one week to the event, but as you can see, no single government official was present at the occasion.
“The truth is that (the state) government deliberately refused to attend the event. Enough publicity was done for the occasion and besides, invitation was extended to the state government,” the source said.
Judith, the governor’s wife says she never received an invitation.

Speaking through Dike Bekwele, she said she wasn’t even aware of the event, saying that the governor would have at least sent a representative if he wasn’t going to attend.

Bekwele said, “It is not correct for anybody to say that the governor’s wife was invited. The truth is that the organisers of the event did not invite the state government.

“In the past, the governor’s wife used to attend the occasion in Abuja or any part of the country. I think there is more to why they refused to invite the state government to the occasion.”

This is another scene in the cold war movie currently being played by the Presidency and Governor Amaechi. It follows the Nigerian Governor’s Forum elections where even though he had been barred from contesting a second term, Amaechi contested, and won. He was suspended from the PDP just four days after.