Former Chief of Staff of Rivers State Government House, Chief Tony Okocha, has stated that he did not intend to malign immediate-past Minister of Transportation, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, with his newly published personal memoir, ‘Through The Slippery Slopes Of Rivers State Politics’. In his address to journalists shortly after the public presentation of the book in Port Harcourt, Okocha, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), clarified that he was encapsulating his personal experiences, which would be incomplete without the mention of Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, his former boss during the second tenure of Amaechi as Rivers State Governor from 2011 to 2015.
The former top government official said that he was careful and civil in his choice of words and had used expressions that would not infringe on anybody’s right. In his book, he spoke about the leadership failures, ineptitude, and dictatorship of a man that led to the running of their party aground. However, he emphasized that he did not have any intention of maligning Amaechi. Okocha further said that he is open to criticism and that he wrote the memoir to prove to people that he is not a professional politician, but an intellectual.
In the book, Okocha also highlighted some of the reasons for writing the memoir. One of the reasons was to show that he and his colleagues do not belong to the class of professional politicians but are intellectuals capable of contributing to the development of society. Okocha said that any intellectual work that misses the target of intellectual questions and future recourse should be thrown into the trashcan.
As a chieftain of the APC, Okocha’s book has generated some reactions from the political circle. Some have hailed him for speaking the truth, while others have criticized him for writing a book that could affect the image of the party. Nevertheless, Okocha has stated that he stands by the contents of the book and that he is willing to engage in constructive criticism that will help to improve the party and the country at large.
The personal memoir, ‘Through The Slippery Slopes Of Rivers State Politics’, written by former Chief of Staff of Rivers State Government House, Chief Tony Okocha, has generated various reactions from the political circle. However, Okocha has stated that he wrote the book to encapsulate his personal experiences and to prove that he and his colleagues are intellectuals capable of contributing to the development of society. He also clarified that he did not intend to malign former Governor Amaechi with the book, and his choice of words was careful and civil