FREEPRESS – Former President Goodluck Jonathan has denied offering Lagos State governorship running mate Obafemi Hamzat $5 million bribe in the run-up to the general elections in 2015.
Dr. Jonathan’s denial was contained in a statement in Abuja yesterday by his spokesman Ikechukwu Eze.
According to him, he and Hamzat, who slugged it out for the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket with Governor Akinwunmi Ambode at the primary, before, during and after the 2015 elections.
Hamzat was quoted as saying at the launch of the Sanwo-Olu – Amzat Advocates in Lagos that he rejected Jonathan’s $5 million offer in 2015, explaining that he took the decision for posterity.
But Jonathan said through his aide that no such thing transpired between him and and former Lagos State Commissioner for Works & Infrstructure.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to a claim by the running mate to the APC governorship candidate, Mr. Obafemi Hamzat, that he rejected a $5 million bribe from former President Goodluck Jonathan during the 2015 elections.
“There is no better way to respond to this frivolous claim than to quickly dismiss it as a blatant lie apparently concocted by a wannabe politician desperate for votes in a campaign season.
“In the first place, this character is an obscure individual who in 2015 had neither a recognisable name nor political clout.
“The point has to be clearly made that former President Jonathan has never met this man who was obviously not relevant in the national politics of 2015, let alone seek to offer him bribe.
“If the former President did not offer anyone bribe, having clearly acquitted himself as a man who does not believe in desperate politics, how on earth could he have sought to compromise an individual he didn’t even know and who obviously had no means of helping him politically?
“Assuming anybody had $5 million dollars to spend to better his political fortune as Mr. Hamzat claimed, why seek to waste it on man who was just a commissioner prior to 2015…?”
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