Rotimi Amaechi at 60: The Road, the Rails, and the Riddle of Power

By all accounts, RotimiAmaechi should have been a political footnote—a bright-eyed English graduate from the humid crescents of Port Harcourt, one of many swept into Nigeria’s treacherous post-military democratic tide. But politics, as Amaechi’s 60-year journey affirms, favours not just the bold, but the stubbornly persistent.

From speaker to governor to two-time minister of transportation, Amaechi’s public life has been an intricate dance. Sometimes a waltz, often a war cry. He didn’t merely enter the political arena; he stormed through its centre, forged alliances, broke a few, and emerged, again and again, improbably relevant.

His tenure as governor of oil-rich Rivers State (2007–2015) unfolded like a modern epic: a Supreme Court resurrection after being wrongfully sidelined by his party, then a whirlwind of infrastructure—roads, schools, hospitals, and the famed Port Harcourt monorail project, now as symbolic as it is incomplete. His critics whispered of hubris; his supporters saw a vision.

But it was in Abuja, as transportation czar under President Muhammadu Buhari, that Amaechi’s legacy found steel and speed. Think trains: Lagos to Ibadan, Abuja to Kaduna, Warri to Itakpe. Rail revival became both his calling card and campaign pitch, culminating in a bold (if unsuccessful) run for the APC’s presidential ticket in 2022. He placed second, close enough to matter, not enough to win.

Yet, controversy clings. From accusations by his successor to lingering whispers of misappropriated billions, Amaechi’s story is a Nigerian paradox: accused but unindicted, praised but polarizing, a reformer who admits the system remains unreformed.

Still, at 60, he endures—flawed, fascinating, and unrepentantly political. He is, perhaps, less a man shaped by office and more one who shapes office around himself.

Amaechi remains, as ever, a riddle riding the rails he once built—forward-facing, sometimes off-track, but always in motion.