‘PDP crying wolf, Zakari not related to Buhari’

Buhari Presidential Campaign Organisation on Friday said claims by the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) that the newly appointed collation officer for 2019 general election Aminat Zakari is related to Nigeria president Muhammadu Buhari was untrue.

Zakari was appointed on Thursday to chair the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) committee on collation centre during the 2019 election.

Her appointment stirred various debates across the country, with the PDP claiming that Zakari is a niece to the president.

However, a spokesman to Buhari campaign, Aliyu Abdullahi, dismissed the claims made by the PDP while speaking on Channels Television programme, Sunrise Daily.

“The PDP are crying wolf and are trying to misinform Nigerians because Amina Zakari is not a blood relation of President Muhammadu Buhari,” Abdullahi said.

Aliyu explained that there was no way Buhari would be related to Zakari since he is from Katsina State and Zakari from Zamfara State. INEC, however, said Zakari is from Jigawa State.

He further argued that the outcry over Zakari’s new appointment by the PDP does not deserve debates, saying she was appointed “a national commissioner of the INEC by the previous administration led by Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan since 2011”.

Aliyu opined that there was no bias in Zakari’s appointment as she has garnered enough experience while working for INEC over the years.

“She has witnessed the last election as a national commissioner, she is in charge of welfare so naturally setting-up the venue, administration, and support of the collation centre would be in her domain.”

Aliyu said PDP’s main reason of criticism were unknown because Zakari would not be responsible of announcing the election results.

“What Amina’s role seems to be to my own understanding is purely an administrative and logistics support and that may be informed by her experience, she is the longest-serving commissioner among these sets of commissioners,” said.

“I want to believe that her being chairman of this committee does not have to do with the issue of announcing the results or even accepting or collecting the results from the returning officers.”

He said the INEC chairman Mahmood Yakubu is the only authorized person to announce election results “and he will not abdicate his responsibility”.

Aliyu said the PDP should be more concerned about “is the strengthening of this institution which is supposed to be an independent one, such that individuals will not consider applying any unwholesome caprices”.