Movement for Democratic Dividend, a socio-political group, has raised alarm over surreptitious moves by controversial billionaire businessman, Jimoh Ibrahim to blackmail the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to smuggle in his name as Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate for Ondo November governorship poll.
The group in a statement by its president, Adesoji Akinlamilo, said the recent allegations by Ibrahim that an INEC official demanded one million dollars bribe from him is such a weighty one that has further confirmed his desperation to have his ill-fated judgement enforced to undermine superior judicial pronouncements on similar issues in the past.
The group posited that INEC as the statutory body regulating the conduct of elections in the country should be allowed to do its job in line with extant laws of the land without undue interference and blackmail from any quarters.
“We have it on records that Jimoh Ibrahim in his characteristically arrogant manner recently boasted to some of his supporters that he has laid out a well orchestrated media propaganda against INEC with a view to arms-twisting the commission to recognizing his candidature,” Akinlamilo said in an e-mailed statement to The Trent on Tuesday, October 25, 2016.
“Else how would someone have the effrontery to accuse INEC of a whooping one million dollars bribe at a time the President Buhari-led administration’s crackdown on corruption using all apparatus including the secret police is really gaining momentum.”
The Movement for Democratic Dividend, MDD, also described as worrisome another allegation by Ibrahim accusing the Ondo State resident electoral commissioner, Olusegun Agbaje of arranging a London meeting with him over the November election having obviously failed to get the state chapter of the commission do his bidding.
“We are aware that Olusegun Agbaje has always said that the state chapter will not assume the role of the National Body on certain roles which was why it advised the Biyi Poroye faction to get the headquarters’ nod for a supervision of its Ibadan primaries,” the statement continued.
“It is therefore evident that because the National body and even the state shunned the Ibadan exercise, Jimoh Ibrahim and his co-travelers saddened with this development have been looking for a way to blackmail the commission.
“If he has evidence of the call logs between him and Agbaje on the London meeting let him publish them out as soon as possible and stop the unnecessary attention seeking media brouhaha which is the stock in trade of a drowning man.”
MDD said as stakeholders with concern for the nation’s democratic process, it would not fold it arms and watch some people undermine the gains recorded over the years under some selfish, personal vendetta and self aggrandizement voyage.
