- Timi Frank
By Starrys Obazei | March 18, 2023
starrys@ddnewsonline.com.
A former Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Comrade Timi Frank, on Sunday, revealed that Yakubu Mahood conducted the worst elections in Nigeria’s history because of loyalty and gratitude to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu working out his appointment as Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, chairman.
Frank made the statement while commending the former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, for revealing those who truly appointed Professor Mahmood Yakubu as chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Amaechi, while responding to questions from reporters after casting his vote in Rivers State on Saturday, disclosed that Professor Yakubu was nominated for appointment by a member of the President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s camp.
Amaechi, according to a video of the interview which has gone viral, said: “What advice? I have spoken to everybody concerned on this issue before the election. I have spoken especially to those of us who opposed the reappointment of Mahmood as INEC Chairman.
“The person who nominated him for an appointment is a member of Tinubu’s camp. So what are you expecting? Success? He said Mahmood worked under Wike as Executive Secretary of TETFUND when Wike was Minister of State for education”.
“So what you are having in Rivers State is that APC, SDP and others are contesting elections not against PDP but against INEC and against the Police.”
Frank, who is the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, ULMWP, Ambassador to East Africa and the Middle East, in his reaction to the revelation, thanked the former Governor of Rivers State for his boldness and courage in revealing that Yakubu was installed by Tinubu’s cabal to help rig the election in his favour and that of the APC.
He said that as a former top Minister under President Muhammadu Buhari and a chieftain of the APC, Amaechi was competent and credible enough to reveal those who facilitated the INEC’s job for Yakubu.
Frank said: “From day one, it is clear that the INEC Chairman did not have any good intention to give Nigerians a credible election but to just come and hand it over.
“The INEC chairman needs to be arrested for lying and his refusal to follow the template and guidelines put in place by the commission, an act that is tantamount to criminality.
He insisted that because the INEC Chairman owed overwhelming allegiance to Tinubu for appointing him to the job, all he did was reward Tinubu with votes rather than conduct a free, fair and credible election.
According to the Bayelsa-born political activist, Yakubu practically conducted the worst and most fraudulent election in the history of Nigeria because of an obligation he owed those who saw to his appointment.
He said the fraud and rigging perpetrated during the election show clearly that Buhari is not only culpable but a partner to the dirty marriage that culminated in the re-appointment of the INEC chairman.
“We expected Buhari to have left a legacy of free, fair and credible elections which he promised Nigerians but what has happened shows that he equally lacks integrity and honour to keep to his words.
He further called on the international community to urgently take strong measures against election riggers in the country like the INEC Chairman, security chiefs – police and others – that rigged the elections and fraudulently thwarted the will of the people.