Wike denies claim of INEC Chairman working under him at TETFUND, says Amaechi should be probed for threatening national security
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has debunked claim of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), once working under him as the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
Rotimi Amaechi, the former minister for transportation made the claim on Saturday, March 18. He alleged that Yakubu was nominated for reappointment as INEC chairman by an individual in the camp of Bola Tinubu, the president-elect.
However reacting to this, Kelvin Ebiri, Governor Nyesom Wike’s special assistant on media stated that Amaechi’s claim of the just conducted general elections by INEC being the worst in Nigeria’s history is ‘ludicrous’.
He also said that Amaechi’s claim of opposing the reappointment of Yakubu because he was nominated by someone in Tinubu’s camp was tantamount to public incitement and a threat to national security.
Wike also asked why it took this long for Amaechi, who served as a minister for over seven years under President Muhammadu Buhari to speak out about his opposition to Yakubu’s reappointment.
The statement read;
“The truth was that Mahmood Yakubu never worked under me. Both of us worked in the Federal Ministry of Education. He was the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, supervised by the minister of education, while I was the minister of state for education.
“At any rate, was Mahmood Yakubu INEC’s chairman in the 2015 general elections in Rivers State when we defeated him and his political party as a sitting Governor and director-general of Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential campaign?
“Was it not the same Mahmood Yakubu that conducted the 2019 general election, which the APC and President Mohammadu Buhari won?
“Was he working for Atiku Abubakar of the PDP when, as a sitting super minister of transportation, he could not win 25% for president Buhari in Rivers state in the 2019 general election?
“In saner climes, law enforcement agencies should have invited such a devious and malignant character for hate speech, public incitement, and threat to national security, public safety, and order. By his mischievous statements, Rotimi Amaechi attempted to attribute, locate and blame his infamous political failures and frustrations in Rivers State on the INEC’s chairman.”
