In addition, he can be compassionate and is endearingly down-to-earth. He doesn’t have a penchant for irritating airs and graces. I have seen him cheerfully hopping onto buses with his staff to inspect projects.

I have heard him cracking jokes that downplay his considerable status. And he doesn’t, like far too many Nigerian VIPs, boastfully carry on as if he’s a prince who will die without luxury items.

Furthermore, if someone advises Amaechi to handle certain challenges differently, he may disagree with that person’s opinion and insist that he is on the right track; but if he feels that the person who offered him the rejected advice had sincere intentions, he won’t treat the person like a criminal for querying his judgement.

Plus, he loves his First Lady, Judith; and I have a soft spot for husbands who still have romantic feelings for their wives after several years of marriage.

Having said all this, I have a bone to pick with Amaechi.
I don’t approve of his administration’s reactions to the EFCC allegations that have recently been directed at his Chief Of Staff. The emphasis was on loudly blaming disgruntled opponents for conducting a smear campaign against the state government. And I’m too old to be impressed by such diversionary tactics.

Even if the opponents initiated the EFCC investigation – and I have yet to see evidence that they did - was it the opponents who allegedly paid public funds into private bank accounts?

And, even if the EFCC is a malign, dishonest and grossly incompetent organisation that is lying through its teeth or daftly misunderstanding innocent transactions, let’s cut to the chase, quit the temptation to point fingers and focus on the main issues. All I want to know is whether the Chief Of Staff is guilty of theft or not.

And, by the way, even if he is blameless, I see no reason why dancing troupes should have met him at Port Harcourt Airport when he was released on bail! Was this noisy spectacle an appropriate response to serious corruption charges?

At any rate, I have long felt that our state will benefit if Amaechi makes peace with the former mentor (Dr Odili) and former colleagues with whom he is now so very publicly at loggerheads. And I will continue to pray for an end to hostilities.

 Let Nigeria be one

Last week, I complained about the fact that a senior executive I know had just resigned from his job because he was not a native of the state he was working in and had become tired of tolerating the constant harassment he received from locals who were extremely annoyed about the job being given to an “outsider”.

 Quite a few friends and relatives read this article and called me to say that they didn’t agree with my position. According to them, every single employment opportunity should, without exception, be reserved for people who come from the areas in which offices, oil blocs, construction sites, factories (or whatever) are located…unless no qualified or trainable indigenous candidates can be found.

And I guess that my critics have a point. It isn’t ideal to “import” manpower to places where jobless sons and daughters of the soil are struggling for survival.

But it is also not ideal to viciously attack respectful and skilled “visitors” who work on our home turfs as if they are dangerous arch-enemies with nothing to offer.

Some Nigerians are totally detribalized, but far too many are resolutely wedded to the view that it is absolutely necessary to ignore the strengths of people from other ethnic groups and covertly or overtly undermine them on every possible level.

A few months ago, in this column, I said that various individuals from other geopolitical zones had – at times when I had needed practical or moral support - often been much kinder to me than my fellow Niger Deltans or my Igbo brethren (my mother is from Imo State).

And I nearly got slapped for saying so!

Some folks from the 2 zones I belong to furiously accused me of making my people look cheap. But I flatly refused to retract that statement because facts are facts.

Sure, I regularly condemn the powerful Northern and South-Western cabals that have conspired to politically marginalise my paternal and maternal zones.  

But I never allow myself to forget that when I have been ill or broke, Northerners and Yorubas have often been more helpful than my South-Southern and South-Eastern kith and kin. It is also worth noting that some of the Northerners and Yorubas who have gone out of their way to assist me are not as rich or well-connected as some of the Igbos and Niger Deltans who have looked the other way.

A REAL brother or sister does not necessarily come from your region or family. A REAL brother or sister is someone who cares enough. And I pray that we will eradicate the cancer of tribalism in the not-too-distant future and remember that Nigeria is ONE country, not separate nations that are at war with each other.

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