Former minister of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has said he would have challenged the government of President Bola Tinubu had it been he was still a governor.

This was as he slammed the current governors for tolerating the excess of the Tinubu administration.

Amaechi, a former governor of Rivers State, said this in Abuja on Tuesday at launch of a book by former Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, titled, 'Being True to Myself.'

He said: “I asked you (Lamido) this morning, what is going on currently in the country, in Nigerian politics — would it have happened when we were governors? You said no. And the answer is no.”

Amaechi added: “We would have confronted the government, confronted the president. That’s how radical you were. That’s how our Governors Forum operated. That’s how determined we were to change things.”

He reflected on his political relationship with Lamido, noting that although they were allies in government, their paths diverged over strategy in opposing then-President Goodluck Jonathan.

“We were quite good friends in government. We had our bad times when we disagreed. I made the mistake of assuming he was as radical as I was. So, he was one of the governors I clung to when it came to radical decisions.

“The last one before we broke ranks was when we all agreed to go against President Jonathan. We formed a committee of governors and others. At the end of the day, he went to find a new party, the SDP. We said, ‘If we go to the SDP, we will lose the election. Let’s hang on to this one called the APC.’ He disagreed and left us. That’s where we parted ways.”

ASA