The Presidency on Friday attacked the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, over accusation that INEC’s appointee, Hajiya Amina Zakari is a relation of President Muhammadu Buhari, saying that Zakari has no relationship with the president.
A statement issued by Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity said the PDP had continued their baseless accusations regarding Hajiya Amina Zakari, a commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) accusing her of partiality and casting doubts about her integrity as an electoral commissioner.
“In their desperation, they forget that it was the PDP government that appointed her in the first place and they keep lying, as they have been caught doing on so many issues, by imputing a blood relationship between her and President Muhammadu Buhari.
“President Buhari and Commissioner Amina Zakari don’t share a family relationship. An inter-marriage occurred in their extended families, so the imputation of blood relationship between the President and the electoral commissioner is a simple lie,” Shehu said.
According to Shehu, “what is even more curious about all the fuss coming from the PDP is that they, as a ruling party picked Mrs Zakari, judging her by her own merit and made her an electoral commissioner. She served so well with distinction as can be verified from the records that President Buhari approved the recommendation that she be reappointed, as he did other PDP nominees for second-term of four years.
“PDP, therefore, has no moral right to keep harassing this hardworking mother unless they have a hidden agenda. By this statement, the PDP is guilty of scoring an own goal and two, of harassing an innocent citizen on the basis of a lie, pure and simple.”
Zakari was appointed as national commissioner in the INEC representing the entire seven states in the North-West under the Goodluck Jonathan administration in 2011.
Zakari also chaired the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) with responsibility for party system consolidation. She was also the chairman of the INEC Planning Monitoring and Strategy Committee effective November 2014.
