As he approaches his 60th birthday on May 27, former Minister of Transportation and ex-Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, says while he has no regrets about his time in public office, there are ideas he wishes had come to him earlier.
In an interview with The Sun, Amaechi was asked if, looking back, there was anything he would have done differently. He responded, “There are things you could have done differently, but that does not mean I have regrets.” One of those things, he explained, was housing. Amaechi said he only came to fully understand the potential for large-scale housing after his experience at the federal level. “Take for instance, I could as well have borrowed money to build… There are six million Rivers people, for instance. We could have borrowed money to build six million houses,” he said.
He recalled a conversation with someone at the Ministry of Transport that changed his thinking. “The person asked me, how do you think we accommodate our 1.4 billion persons? Are they living on the streets? Are they in the air? We accommodate them,” he said, referencing how high-rise buildings are used in other parts of the world to deal with dense populations.
On whether land would have been a challenge, Amaechi disagreed. “We have the land. In Rivers State, we have land,” he said. He clarified that the houses would not be single units for every individual but rather high-rise structures to maximize space and resources. While maintaining he has no regrets, Amaechi’s remarks show a reflective tone as he approaches a milestone age, with a clear sense that some initiatives might have made a greater impact if acted upon earlier.
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