2019: PDP rejects ’Buhari’s niece’ as Head of INEC Presidential Election Collation Team

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the appointment of Amina Zakari, a niece of President Muhammadu Buhari, as the chairman of the result collation committee for the upcoming general election.

The party at a press conference in Abuja on Thursday noted that by making the appointment,  the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmoud Yakubu, was creating a self-succession plan for the president.

Kola Ologbodiyan, the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council, who addressed the conference, told newsmen that the appointment of Zakari, who is the INEC Commissioner in charge of Health and Welfare, is unacceptable because of the numerous previous allegations against her.  

He said the PDP will not allow itself to be rigged out of the election.

The PDP spokesman recalled that the party had raised several alarms on the intention of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to use INEC to manipulate the election but they had fallen on deaf ears.

He said: “You will recall that we have been raising the flag on how the Buhari Presidency, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some individuals at the echelon of INEC have been seeking ways to compromise our electoral processes and open the way for the allocation of fictitious votes to President Muhammadu Buhari, having realized that he cannot win in a credible, free and fair polls.

“Today, we have been informed that the Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, apparently in furtherance of the plots to rig the Presidential election, has appointed Mrs Amina Zakari, a blood relation (niece) of the APC candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, as the Chairperson of INEC Advisory Committee and Presidential election Collation Center Committee.

“The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) outrightly, vehemently and unequivocally rejects, in its entirety, the appointment of Mrs. Amina Zakari, President Buhari’s blood relation, as the head of the collation of results, in the same election in which his uncle, President Buhari, as a candidate, has displayed a huge desperation to win.

“The appointment of Mrs. Amina Zakari, who had been openly accused in various quarters as being the link person between INEC and the Buhari Presidency in their schemes to rig the election for President Buhari, constitutes a direct violence against the Presidential election and the PDP will not, in any way, whatsoever, accept it.