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Wike Responds To Claims INEC Chairman Worked Under Him, Calls For Amaechi’s Probe

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has debunked claims that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, once worked under him.

Rotimi Amaechi, the former minister for transportation, on Saturday, claimed that the INEC chairman worked under Wike as the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFUND.

According to Amaechi, Yakubu was nominated for reappointment as INEC chairman by someone in the camp of the president-elect, Bola Tinubu.

Rotimi Amaechi

Reacting, Wike in a statement by his special assistant on media, Kelvin Ebiri, refuted Amaechi’s claim and said his outburst that the just concluded general elections by INEC were the worst in Nigeria’s history, is ‘ludicrous’.

Wike said, “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?

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“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?

The Rivers State governor described Amaechi’s claim that he opposed the reappointment of Yakubu because he was nominated by someone in Tinubu’s camp as amounting to public incitement and a threat to national security.

He wondered why it took the former transportation minister this long to speak out about his opposition to Yakubu’s appointment, after serving for more than seven years under President Muhammadu Buhari.

Wike added, “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.”

Obiajulu Joel Nwolu

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