Key Takeaways
- On Sunrise Daily, former Rivers State governor and ADC vice presidential candidate Rotimi Amaechi slammed the Tinubu administration for corruption worse than ‘ Alibaba and the 40 thieves’, while questioning the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway as a personal project.
- This came days after a November 5 Federal High Court ruling voided the ADC’s leadership and Atiku Abubakar’s presidential primaries, prompting an appeal and calls for calm campaigning.
- Amaechi highlighted his past infrastructure wins like the Rivers Monorail and proposed reintroducing a fuel subsidy linked to local production to ease economic woes.
Former Rivers State governor and African Democratic Congress (ADC) vice presidential candidate, Rotimi Amaechi, has slammed the Tinubu administration for corruption worse than ‘Alibaba and the 40 thieves’, while questioning the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway as a personal project.
Amaechi made the remarks on Sunrise Daily, in an interview that has since gone viral on X via Channels Television.
“The president chose to construct the coastal road because of the benefits he will get… If there was stealing in Buhari’s government, can you compare it to what is going on now? What is going on now is what I call ‘Alibaba and the 40 thieves’…”
It was a direct attack on the flagship infrastructure project of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu — the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway — which Amaechi framed not as a national project, but as a personal one driven by benefits to the President.
Amaechi went further, comparing the current administration to the Buhari administration on corruption, and insisting that what is happening now is worse.
The president chose to construct the coastal road because of the benefits he will get…If there was stealing in Buhari's government, can you compare it to what is going on now? What is going on now is what I call 'Alibaba and the 40 thieves'…
– Rotimi Amaechi, ADC Vice… pic.twitter.com/dUrq5kCsp9
— Channels Television (@channelstv) November 10, 2026
The interview came days after a November 5 Federal High Court ruling voided the ADC’s leadership and Atiku Abubakar’s presidential primaries, prompting an appeal and calls for calm campaigning.
The ruling, delivered by Justice Peter Lifu, has thrown the ADC into uncertainty ahead of the January 16, 2027 presidential election, with the party saying it has not even seen the judgment and needs to get it to file an appeal.
Despite the court setback, Amaechi used the Sunrise Daily appearance to pitch the ADC’s alternative — highlighting his past infrastructure wins like the Rivers Monorail and proposing reintroducing a fuel subsidy linked to local production to ease economic woes.
For Amaechi, who served as Minister of Transportation under Buhari and built the Lagos-Ibadan railway and other rail projects, the argument is about competence — that he has built before, and can build again, without what he calls the “ Alibaba” system.
The Tinubu administration has repeatedly defended the Coastal Highway as a transformative national project that will boost trade, tourism and connectivity across the South, and has dismissed corruption allegations as opposition politics.
On X, reactions have been split — supporters of the ADC say Amaechi said what many Nigerians feel about hardship and corruption, while supporters of Tinubu accuse him of bitterness after losing political relevance in Rivers.
