Nigeria’s electoral body, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday refuted reports alleging its resident commissioner in Adamawa state received a $3m bribe from the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
Media reports stated that PDP and Atiku had given earmarked huge amounts of monies to buy votes nationwide during Saturday, February 16 presidential election that was postponed.
However, INEC said its resident officer in Adamawa Kashim Gaidam did not receive such amount of money as reported in some media outlets.
The reports also said Atiku had gotten a house for Gaidam in Dubai but has been declared fake news by INEC.
INEC, while debunking the news, tweeted a screenshot of a Facebook post that said “Breaking News: I rejected Atiku’s $1m bribe plus a house in Dubai- Adamawa REC.”
INEC tweeted the caption: “The Adamawa INEC REC completely dissociates himself from the allegation that he had an offer of $1m and a house in Dubai as no offer whatsoever was ever made to him by anyone.”
This comes two days after the INEC postpone the general elections, which was initially scheduled to commence on Saturday last week, by one week.
Nigeria’s electoral body, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the general elections scheduled to begin with presidential and National Assembly elections a few hours to the commencement on Saturday, February 16.
The presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on February 23 while the governorship and state houses of assembly elections will take place on March 9.
Following the postponement, INEC reopened campaigns for political parties before the elections begin on Saturday.
The campaigns are, however, expected to end on Thursday, 21 February 2019.
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