By Aishah Saleeman
Rotimi Amaechi, the former minister for transportation, claimed on Saturday that the current INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu worked under Wike as the executive secretary of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFUND).
The claim has also been shared across multiple social media platforms, including Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook.
It has also been reported by news outlets around the nation.
Verification
CDD Election War Room confirmed that Mahmood Yakubu was indeed the executive secretary of TETFUND from August 2007 to August 2012.
He served the Umaru Yar’Adua administration with direct reporting to five different ministers of education, including Igwe Aja Nwachukwu (June 2007 to December 2008), Jerry Agada (June 2007 to December 2008), Aishatu Jibril Dukku (June 2007 – 2010), Sam Egwu (December 2008 to March 2010) and Ruqqayat Rufai ( April 2010 to September 2013).
Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state, was appointed as interim minister to oversee the ministry of education in September 2013, upon a cabinet reschuffle by Goodluck Jonathan. At this time, Yakubu was no longer executive secretary at TETFUND.
Wike was, however, minister of state for education to Ruqqayat Rufai from July 2011, and may have worked with Yakubu for about a year. The executive secretary of TETFUND reports to 12-person board of trustees.
Verdict
The current INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, was executive secretary of TETFUND at the time Wike was minister of state for education, but Yakubu was answerable to the board of trustees and not exactly the minister of state.
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