Rivers State governor, Neysom Wike, said security agencies ought to arrest former Transport Minister, Rotimi Amaechi over the latter’s comment on the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.
Amaechi had accused Yakubu of favouring Wike and Bola Ahmed Tinubu with rigging in the just concluded polls.
The ex-minister in the angry remark, claimed someone close to Tinubu nominated the INEC chairman for the office while he (Yakubu) worked under Wike during their times as Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund, and Minister of State for Education respectively.
The accusation on Tuesday excited Wike’s response, with the governor labelling Amaechi a liar, and frustrated politician, adding that in normal country the ex-minister would be apprehended as his outburst allegedly amounted to hate speech and a threat to national security.
His words: “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.”
