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It has been revealed how presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu tried to compromise the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) with $170m bribe in order to get the electoral commission to do his bidding.
In a leaked audio clip, a consultant with INEC, Olatubosun Adeniyi Kuku, who is a Director at Winning Keys Consult Limited located at Usan Street, Durumi, Abuja, is heard speaking with a senior INEC official where he boasts about previously taking another INEC official to Tinubu without any hassle.
“I took him (INEC official) to Asiwaju. When he got there, without telling me, when I took him there. When he got to the sitting room, Asiwaju said, I’ve been looking for you. (But) You are playing me. So you know what he said? Do you know what he said? No money for what? If you have chairman, you don’t need software. Do you know, he knows.
“Asiwaju is giving INEC 170,000,000 USD. We will share it around, everybody will do the biding…I am number one contractor in INEC. Last 2019, it is N7.8 billion contract they gave me. Ask him who I am. They call me the hembelembe of INEC. That’s what I do”, Kuku was visibly heared saying in the audio.
The audio was recorded by a senior INEC official.
This is not the first time that allegations to compromise INEC would be made.
Recall that in the run-up to the 2019 presidential election, INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu admitted that the commission indeed awarded a contract to Act Technologies Limited to print Permanent Voters’ Cards.
Act Technologies, whose Managing Director, Mr. Mohammed Musa, was APC candidate for Niger-East senatorial district at the time, went on to win that election.
In 2015, the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation accused Musa and his firm of supporting the APC in the 2015 general elections.
On July 1, 2014, the company was subsequently awarded a contract by the Independent National Electoral Commission to supply blank PVCs and install machines to be used in printing PVCs. His firm also supplied the card reader machines.
The MD of the company was arrested by the Department of State Services briefly before the 2015 elections following allegations by the spokesman for the Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation.
The Spokesman for the campaign organisation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, had said in a statement on the eve of the 2015 Presidential election, “Our concerns stem from the fact that the moving spirit and major shareholder and board member of the company that supplied the card reader system and machines to INEC is not only a friend but a keen supporter of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.
“That man is Sani Musa, and he is indeed the force behind the card reader machines supplied to INEC. He is indeed the man behind Act Technologies. How and why INEC would give the contract to supply the cards to a fanatical APC supporter needs to be explained.”