Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has disclosed that his father wanted him to study law in the university but instead decided to go into Politics.

He said: I joined politics in the university. My father actually wanted me to study Law. A lot of people don’t know that he named me ‘Rotimi’ after the famous lawyer, Frederick Rotimi Alade Williams. My father never met him (Williams) but he admired FRA’s larger-than-life persona and the fact that he was a brilliant lawyer. So, my father believed that I would be a lawyer and I should be able to do as well as FRA.

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He further said that he would have gone into law just as his father wanted but it was difficult to get admission.

Unfortunately, it was difficult to get admission to study Law. The first admission offer I got was to study Secretarial Administration and we all laughed over that at home. At that time, in addition to the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, I also wrote an exam to get into the Rivers State University of Science and Technology. I had even started registration as a student of RSUT before I was offered admission (through UTME) to study English Studies and Literature at the University of Port Harcourt. I applied to study English at UNIPORT because the school had no law faculty then.

He, however, said that he didn’t regret studying English Studies and Literature as he believes that people underrate the course and would be glad if any of his children decide to study the course too.

 Most people think English Studies is about grammar but that isn’t so. There is an English language department in English Studies. I read Literature.