‘A frustrated politician’ – Wike blasts Amaechi over claims on INEC chairman

The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday, dismissed a claim that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, once worked under him in the ministry of education.

Wike served as the Minister of State for Education under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration from 2013 to 2015.

The former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, on Saturday told journalists after casting his vote in the Rivers State governorship election that Yakubu worked under Wike as the Executive Secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).

He added that the INEC chairman was currently doing the bidding of his former boss.

The ex-minister also claimed that Yakubu was nominated for reappointment by a key supporter of the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

“Many of us opposed the reappointment of Mahmood Yakubu, the person who nominated him is a member of Tinubu’s camp. So what are you expecting,” he stated on that day.

But in a statewide broadcast in Port Harcourt, Wike described as laughable Amaechi’s claim that the just concluded elections were the worst in Nigeria’s history.

He also dismissed his predecessor as a pathological liar and frustrated politician.

READ ALSO: Rivers APC youth group shuns Amaechi, endorses Wike’s candidate

The governor asked security agencies to arrest Amaechi over his claims that he opposed the reappointment of Yakubu because he was nominated by someone in Tinubu’s camp.

He said: “Amaechi wildly claimed in his interview that the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, conducted the worst elections in Nigeria’s history.

“Amaechi further alleged that Mahmood Yakubu worked under me as minister and confessed that he opposed his reappointment because he was nominated by someone in the President-elect’s camp of the APC.

“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 percent for President Buhari in Rivers State in the 2019 general election?”

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