•No northerner alive can beat Buhari –Aide

Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, has said those who desirous of leaving the Al Progressives Congress (APC) can leave.

But, the minister urged Nigerians in his political circle to re-dedicate themselves and restore their commitment to God, ahead of the 2019 general elections.

Amaechi spoke when he testified, at the weekend, in Abuja, of his ‘miraculous’ emergence as Rivers State governor  in 2007, during a special thanksgiving service, to mark the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court judgement.

The thanksgiving service held at the Abundant Life Evangelical Mission (ALEM) in Port Harcourt, on Sunday.

With former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar’s recent defection from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), some members of the party have urged Amaechi to also return to their fold.

Regardless, Amaechi re-lived his ordeal in 2007 andspoke of how God showed up when all odds were against him.

“The truth is that we believed God. Some who didn’t believe left us just as they are leaving now. God told me that what he will do in Rivers State will tingle the ears, and I believed. We were so broke, we could not pay legal fees or children’s school fees. My wife prayed every day and night. I was fasting and praying for three months. I told God ‘I have a friend who has money, please make him remember me.’

“I called my friend and he told me he had been looking for me. I told him I was in Ghana and he asked for my account…He sent me N200 million. This is just to tell you that I believed God and he answered me,” said Amaechi.

He wondered why many of his friends, and political associates, whom he helped one way or the other, have turned on him but quickly added that that it is God’s way of creating a vacuum; for the youths to take charge.

The minister also advised youthd to be of help to people around them; when they are in positions of power. “We must all go back to God in faith and prayers. Those who want to leave can go. I have come to understand that God passes us through these challenges to prove Himself. Now that they have left, for me, this is an opportunity for the youths. It is your turn. You must ensure that we get to power for you to fill the vacuum left.

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“I have sometimes asked God, ‘why do you use me to bless people and, after blessing them, they run away.’ Count how many people in Rivers State politics today that I did not help somehow. I don’t want to take the glory away from God. So, for those who left, may God bless them. When you get your own appointment, also put somebody. Allow God to use you and leave the rest all up to Him,” Amaechi advised.

On the 2019 elections, he said: “If we don’t pray, 2019 will be very far from us. If we don’t win 2019, it would be your fault, not anybody else. We go to God because he answers. We pray, then go home and work. Back then, even in my father’s house in the village there was a prayer team…”

During his sermon, ALEM General Overseer, Eugene Ogu, recalled Amaechi’s travails in 2007, how he cried at the altar and how God used him to make a statement in Rivers.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari’s Special Assistant on New Media, Lauretta Onochie, has reacted to the outcome of the PDP national convention in Abuja.

The elective convention, which produced Prince Uche Secondus, as PDP national chairman, was held on Saturday, December 9, in Abuja.

In a tweet on Sunday, the presidential aide agreed with an Abuja-based lawyer, Daniel Bwalla, who said 2019 will swing in favour of Buhari.

She also declared that no northerner alive can defeat Buhari in 2019.

She wrote: “I agree. There is no northerner alive who can beat president Buhari at the polls in the North.

“In terms of what PDP did (on Saturday), 2019 election is done and dusted…”

Secondus polled over 2,000 votes at the party’s convention in Abuja.