By Emeka Amaefula
FORMER MINISTER OF TRANSPORTATION CHIBUIKE ROTIMI AMAECHI OBTAINS BARRISTER AT LAW CERTIFICATE
The dreams of most young men and women remain to earn laurels and academic accomplishments for various obligations some life time and for social class. The former Rivers State Governor and Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has been having a life time ambition of fulfilling his late father’s wishes which is being a trained lawyer. This has been finally achieved after so many attempts and seriously and rigidly followed as he attended the one-year Advance Legal Education programme known as Nigerian Law School recently as he was among those who bagged Barrister At-Law certificates B.L. And he earned a Master’s Degree in Corporate and Company Law at Kings College London, United Kingdom, all simultaneously.
Before now Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi attended University of Port Harcourt where studied English Language and Literary Studies with a Masters degree in Literary Studies all from University of Port Harcourt, Rivers state. He served the mandatory National Youth Service Corps Scheme at Kaduna state. He never stopped at improving his educational inquest into deeper knowledge as he enrolled for a bachelor’s degree in Law at Baze University Abuja at the age of 57 years. He graduated among 504 students.
In 2022, he was interviewed about his interest in returning back to pursue a degree in the university of which he said “Going back to obtain a Law degree at 57 is normal. I should have graduated a long time ago. When I hear people say I bought a degree, I just laugh. I laugh because until I started campaigning for presidency, I never missed a Class. So, for three years and six months, I never missed a class. And I came before all the Lecturers and I came before all the students.
“The school gave me an award for being diligent and punctual. I never failed any Course Work. But that’s not important. What’s important is that I wrote all my Coursework in person. So, they can’t say Lecturers passed me.”
The Rivers state former governor now a trained lawyer and Solicitor of Supreme Court of Nigeria had his Barrister At-Law Certificate signed by the Chairman of Body of Benchers Justice Mary Ukaego Odili.
In fulfilment of the saying of his late in 2022 he narrated why he studied Law “First and foremost, it was to fulfil my father’s wish that I read Law. At least, I have satisfied his wish and he would have been happy if he was alive. He was in love with the work of Chief Rotimi Williams who was one of the best lawyers then and felt I should be like him.”
The rough road to success was not easy for the then serving Minister of Transportation but he was able to circumvent the roughness of the journey as he said “When I got admission, I started asking myself, how would I cope with my work. I would go to school as early as 8am and report to work by 6pm. I worked from 6pm to 11pm and sometimes 11:30pm then I go home. I did that on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Wednesdays were Cabinet Meetings. I worked Wednesdays and Fridays.”
For the former All Progressives Congress APC Presidential aspirant, his penchant for the study of law may not have bearing in his navigation towards practicing Law but when confronted with this he was quick to have responded “ I don’t I you can’t know excerpts. Tend to practice but to have the knowledge of Law and Certificate. It is to help me not to make some mistakes. There’s no excuse in law. So, they are something you cant know except you read law.”