Amaechi’s Ex-Commissioner, Semenitari Explains Why N82m Was Spent To Host Soyinka To A Lavish Dinner

Former Rivers State information Commissioner, Mrs Ibim Semenitari has declared that for months, officials of the current administration in Rivers State were looking for “evidence” to justify their much-touted corruption allegation against the former administration of Hon. Chibuike Amaechi. And last week, they finally “found” one.

She said that at a lavish press conference in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State Commissioner of Information and Communications, Dr. Austin Tam-George, called on anti-corruption agencies to investigate the expenditure of N82 million made to host Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, during his 80th birthday celebration.

In a statement signed by Beke Anyalewechi, Special Assistant, Media to the acting Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) she said “Unfortunately, and perhaps to show the sinister intent of the whole issue, to which the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has also shown undue excitement, references were made to Prof. Soyinka as a “friend of Amaechi”, without putting in context what necessitated the honour for the Nobel Laureate by the then Rivers State Government”.

It stated that “while the whole claim is nothing but bare-faced lies deliberately hatched to smear the literary scholar as well as the acting MD of NDDC, it is a shame that officials of government would indulge in this kind of gimmicky just to settle petty scores.

“We feel particularly sorry that Tam-George, barely a week in office, has manifested such gross incompetence in the procedures of his office as spokesman of government.”

The statement further explained that the background to the decision of the then Rivers State Government to honour Prof. Soyinka, his family and friends, had a link to the great literary feat the then Administration of Hon. Amaechi achieved in