Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, has berated former Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Amaechi, and the other opposition leaders in African Democratic Congress (ADC), accusing them of duplicity over the contentious electronic transmission of election results in the 2026 Electoral Act.
Wike made the rebuke on Monday at his monthly media parley.
There had been a groundswell of opposition to the Electoral Act, which was recently signed by President Bola Tinubu, especially with regard to the proviso that allowed manual transmission of results where electronic transmission failed because of bad network.
Wike said Amaechi, as Minister of Transportation, was the person who persuaded the late President Muhammadu Buhari not to ratify the provision that approved electronic transmission of results. He questioned the former minister’s volte face on a provision he once opposed.
The FCT minister stated, “Remember under Buhari, the issue of electronic transmission came. People like Rotimi Amaechi, they were in government, they said ‘no, don’t sign, if you sign you lose election’.
“And this is the same person now coming out in the public to say there should be electronic transmission, but he refused simply because he felt his boss would be affected.”
He insisted that rather than prohibit electronic transmission of results, the new Electoral Act sought to prevent disenfranchisement by allowing manual transmission where there was a glitch in electronic transmission.
Wike, a former governor of Rivers State, who succeeded Amaechi, stated, “Now we are here, they did not say there should not be electronic transmission. All they said is in case, and which is likely, let us not disenfranchise people by not allowing their votes to be counted.”
Wike maintained that his position on President Bola Tinubu and the candidates aligned with him in the 2027 general election remained unchanged, adding it has remained the same since he declared support for the president before the 2023 election.
He stressed that his political alignment with Tinubu was driven by his quality of leadership and political choices available, adding that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appeared not to have learnt and reflected on previous political outcomes.
Wike said, “My position has not changed. I told you in 2023 that even as a PDP man, I was going to work for the president. That is what I did because I believe, and rightly so, that the other parties did not present serious candidates.”
The FCT minister also described PDP as farcical. He said the party did not consult him when selecting the candidates they intended to field, including in the recent FCT Area Council elections.
Olawale Ajimotokan and Funmi Ogundare
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