Omoyele Sowore has criticised former Rivers State governor Rotimi Amaechi after a video emerged showing lawyers attending the Nigerian Bar Association’s 2026 annual conference struggling through floodwater at the venue’s exit in Port Harcourt. Some delegates paid local residents between ₦3,000 and ₦5,000 to be carried to safety.
Sowore, the African Action Congress candidate for the 2027 presidential election, posted the video on X on Friday night. In it, lawyers are seen rolling up their clothing or being carried on the backs of residents through standing water. A commentator on the footage identified the location as the conference exit and noted that people were also selling slippers and umbrellas. One carrier charged ₦3,000; another transaction was quoted at ₦5,000.
Sowore linked the scenes to remarks Amaechi made earlier at the same event. He recalled Amaechi telling the gathering to take him around Rivers State to see roads and schools the former governor said he had built, and suggested the flooding cast doubt on claims of infrastructural transformation.
The 66th NBA Annual General Conference opened in Port Harcourt on Monday, 24 August 2026. During a session that day, Amaechi challenged Rivers lawyers present to show Sowore the projects from his time in office (2007–2015). He also defended railway work completed while he served as minister of transportation under former President Muhammadu Buhari, citing the Lagos-Ibadan and Abuja-Kaduna lines.
Amaechi’s official record lists 890 kilometres of roads, more than 300 model primary and secondary schools, 160 primary healthcare centres, an increase in power generation capacity from 70 MW to 700 MW, several bridges and interchanges, free education packages, and the construction of the Kelsey Harrison Hospital and Justice Karibi-Whyte Hospital.
The exchange between Amaechi and Sowore at the conference had already drawn attention. The flooding video has now intensified scrutiny of drainage and road conditions in Port Harcourt, with Sowore using the images to question successive administrations’ claims of major infrastructural progress in Rivers State.
The incident has prompted online discussion about the state of public infrastructure in the city, though no official response from Amaechi or state authorities is included in the available report.
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