Speaking on Monday during a media chat, Wike accused Amaechi and other opposition leaders of double standards over their current demand for the compulsory clause of electronic transmission of election results in the amended 2026 Electoral Act.
Nyesom Wike, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, has alleged that former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi was among those who persuaded former President Muhammadu Buhari to withhold approval for the electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act.
Speaking on Monday during a media chat, Wike accused Amaechi and other opposition leaders of double standards over their current demand for the compulsory clause of electronic transmission of election results in the amended 2026 Electoral Act.
The Minister alleged that Amaechi persuaded Buhari not to sign the provision approving electronic transmission of results when they were in power, questioning why the former minister is now complaining about a provision he once opposed.
According to Wike, they convinced Buhari that he would lose elections if he approved the electronic transmisison of results.
“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 who is coming out in the public to say there should be electronic transmission, but he refused simply because he felt his boss would be affected,” Wike said.
The former Rivers State Governor, however, insisted that the new Electoral Act does not prohibit electronic transmission of results but seeks to prevent disenfranchisement by allowing manual transmission where electronic transmission fails.
“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 said.
Recall that lastweek, opposition parties and leaders in the country addressed a joint press conference where they rejected the Electoral Act 2026 recently signed into law by President Bola Tinubu.