Transportation Minister, Amaechi, to be turbaned chief in Buhari’s hometown.

Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi, is to turbaned Dan Amana Daura by the Emir of Daura, Katsina State, Alhaji (Dr) Umar Farouk Umar.

The installation ceremony scheduled for February 5, 2022, will make Amaechi a chief of the Daura Emirate Council.

The ceremony will be performed at the Emir’s Palace in Daura.

Daura is the hometown of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Amaechi, who is a former two-term Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly, two-term governor of Rivers State, two-term Chairman of Nigeria’s Governors’ Forum, on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party, defected to the All Progressives Congress, in 2014, in support of the presidential aspiration of then Major General Buhari, who contested against, and defeated incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015.

The minister was the Director-General of Buhari’s Campaign in 2015 and 2019. Amaechi was later appointed by President Buhari as the Minister of Transportation and Aviation in 2015, and the Minister of Transport, only in 2019, a position he holds till date.

The former Rivers governor is believed to be one of the ministers in Buhari’s kitchen cabinet with speculations that the President is likely to back him as his successor in 2023.

Amaechi is said to be acceptable to the North, the reason the President is said to believe the minister could be used to assuage the desires of the South-East, being Igbo from Rivers State, for a President of Igbo extraction.

By Amaechi’s turbanning by the Daura Emirate Council, the minister has followed in the footsteps of Senate Chief Whip, Senator Orji Kanu, and the former governor of Imo State, Senator Rochas Okorocha.

Following his turbaning, Okorocha promised to build a university that would be tuition free in Daura.