Rotimi Amaechi to foot Late Writer Elechi Amadi’s Burial

Rotimi Amaechi, former Rivers State Governor and Nigeria’s current minister of transportation continues to play a statesman role in his hometown as he has promised to foot the bills for the funeral ceremony of recently deceased literary icon, Captain Elechi Amadi.

According to the Nation reports, the minister made the promise at the weekend while paying a condolence visit to the family of late Elechi Amadi in Mbodo, Aluu community in Obio /Akpor local government area of the Rivers State.

Amaechi said he had decided to sponsor the burial of the late writer as a way of reciprocating the wonderful contributions Elechi Amadi made to the success and development of the Ikwerre ethnic nationality in particular and Rivers state in general. Amaechi, like the late Amadi, is from the Ikwerre ethnic group in Rivers State.

The former governor stated that he would set up a burial organising committee with his wife to liaise with the deceased’s to give the late literary icon a befitting burial.

According to him: “I was taken aback when I heard that captain is dead. We had a very special relationship. He was a father to me.

“There are a lot of things I had discussed with captain that I needed to put in writing concerning Ikwerre. Unfortunately, I didn’t sit down with him to put those things in writing before his death.”

He added: “My wife and I have agreed to put our committee of friends together to take the responsibility of burying captain, one hundred percent.

“He was a writer before he died and because most writers are complex, very complex people, what I intend to do is set up a committee to liaise with his family.

“We would obey and comply with all that captain said he wants in his burial, whatever he said.”