Atiku React To Amina Zakari Appointment As INEC’s Collation Head

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar , has condemned the appointment of
Amina Zakari as the Independent National Electoral Commission head of collation center for next month’s elections.

Following her appointment, PDP had claimed that she was the niece to President Muhammadu Buhari, hence should be removed from such a position.

However, the Presidency dismissed the claim as false, saying the President had no blood relation with Zakari.

Reacting, Atiku through the PDP presidential campaign spokesperson, Kassim Afegbua, said the history of Zakari’s Amina’s engagement in INEC has been a subject of “public criticism” for quite some time.

Afegbua said, “We have seen her roles in previous elections, and so to that effect, we know she is being accused of being partisan in the way and manner she has been conducting herself within the INEC and her responsibility, hence, somebody cannot just come and rub off all that.

“If we say somebody is a niece, that means maybe the mom is a sister to President Buhari and this is a daughter to a woman who is a sister to the president.”

He stated that the relationship between Zakari and Buhari was not the main issue, stressing that the bane of discussion was the standards upon which INEC operates.

“INEC must as a matter of responsibility allow the electoral process to be seen to be transparent, to be devoid of any partisan inclinations to an extent that the participants in the electoral process would see that INEC is fair enough in the way and manner in which they deploy staff (whether ad-hoc or permanent) in the process of conducting elections,” he said.