Sowore Mocks Amaechi As Flood Hits NBA Conference Venue
The presidential candidate of the African Action Congress, Omoyele Sowore, has taken a swipe at the vice presidential candidate of African Democratic Congress, Rotimi Amaechi, after flooding disrupted movement around the venue of the Nigerian Bar Association’s 2026 Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.
Sowore’s criticism followed the emergence of a video showing lawyers and other conference attendees wading through floodwaters at the exit point of the conference venue, with some reportedly paying local residents to carry them through the flooded area.
Reacting to the footage in a post on X on Friday night, Sowore linked the incident to Amaechi’s remarks at the conference earlier in the week, when the former governor highlighted infrastructure projects allegedly executed under his administration.
Sowore said Amaechi appeared to have overlooked the condition of the roads and surrounding infrastructure while recounting his achievements to the audience.
“When @ChibuikeAmaechi stood at the @NigBarAssoc Annual General Conference in Port Harcourt boasting, ‘Take @sowore around Rivers State, I built this road, I built that road, I built this school, I built that school,’ he may have forgotten to look around him,” Sowore wrote.
“This was the venue of the very NBA conference where he made those boasts. Look around Port Harcourt. Look at the roads.
“Look at the infrastructure. Look at the condition of a state they governed and claimed to have transformed. This is the Rivers State they built.”
The video shared in connection with the criticism showed attendees struggling to navigate the flooded access point, with some rolling up their clothes while others were carried on the backs of local residents.
The narrator of the video described the scene as the exit point of the 2026 NBA conference and said residents had turned the situation into an opportunity to make money by carrying stranded lawyers and selling slippers and umbrellas.
According to the narration, some lawyers paid as much as N3,000 to be carried through the flooded stretch, while others reportedly paid N5,000 depending on the distance.
The commentator repeatedly drew attention to the spectacle of lawyers, described as officers of the Temple of Justice, being carried through floodwaters to leave the conference venue.
Recall that Sowore has earlier engaged in a public exchange with Amaechi during their encounter at the NBA conference.
The confrontation occurred on Monday when Amaechi defended his record as Rivers State governor and former Minister of Transportation.
Amaechi, who governed Rivers between 2007 and 2015, challenged lawyers at the conference to show Sowore projects he claimed to have delivered during his tenure.
“Where are Rivers lawyers? Please, take Sowore around. I said I built that road, I built this road, I built this primary school, I built that primary school,” Amaechi said.
He also cited his record in the Federal Government, particularly railway projects undertaken during his tenure as Transportation Minister under former President Muhammadu Buhari.
“I built the Lagos-Ibadan railway and the Abuja-Kaduna railway, and they were working during my time,” Amaechi said in response to Sowore’s earlier criticism.
