The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu is alive.
This is in reply to what the chief press secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, called “a fake news narrative circulated by a section of the social media, claiming the purported death of the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu at a London hospital’.
Oyekanmi in a statement released to the media on Saturday December 14, 2024, said Yakubu is hale and hearty and has not traveled to London in the last two years.
He said the INEC chairman was present at an interactive meeting with the House of Representatives committee on electoral matters on Wednesday, 11th December 2024, and also chaired a meeting with resident electoral commissioners on Thursday, 12th December 2024.
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He noted that both events were widely covered on television and reported on the front pages of most newspapers on Friday, 13th December 2024.
The spokesman cautioned that those who indulge in the practice, as well as those who spread it, should be mindful of its effect, not only on the individual but the wider society.
Oyekanmi recalled that a similar fake report was carried in 2021 and three years later, mischief makers are spreading same story.
The statement further said that the commission will continue to work with genuine media professionals to combat the scourge of fake news and the danger it poses to society.
(Editor: Okechukwu Eze)
