…Fingers Tinubu’s Minister.

A concerned group under the platform of the Nigerian Democratic Congress, Ebonyi Integrity Group (EIG) have raised allegations of bribery and inducements meant to compromise a former Governor of Ebonyi State and a former Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria both, stakeholders of the main opposition NDC in Ebonyi with a view to compromise and alter the integrity of a yet-to-be-announced primary election held in Ebonyi Central Senate where a former Secretary to Ebonyi State Government, Professor Bernard Odoh and a Business mogul, Arch. Christian Asaga Nwali had locked horns last week.

In a statement issued on Monday in Abuja, the nation’s capital, the State’s Coordinator of the group, Chief Maxwell Onwe and the State’s Publicity Secretary, Friday Ogboji Nweke called on the leaders of the Party to rescind any form of inducement that may compromise the eventual outcome of the primary elections in Ebonyi Central Senatorial zone.

It reads, “We have reliably gathered through rumours from the grape vine that a former Governor of the State who is a godfather, mentor, financier and a serving member of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet is allegedly at the centre of coordination of bribery and corruption of stakeholders and officials of the opposition NDC with a whooping $300, 000 dollars to do the bidding of his preferred aspirant and political godson.

We recall that this is coming after he failed to hijack the National Electoral Officers of the Party from Abuja that came to conduct the election whom the same forces had allegedly compromised with the Committee’s Chairman abducted at the Party’s Secretariat but later released due to mounting pressures from some of the Party’s stakeholders.

We were sufficiently informed that the dubious plot was actually to take the abducted Chairman whose phone was switched off immediately he was whisked away from the Party’s Secretariat on the behest of one of the aspirants to an unknown destination where the results of the election would be written and the billionaire business man returned elected even without going into the field for any contest.

However, because the national leadership of the Party prevailed on the State’s Chairman of the Party and others to approach the DSS and make a formal entry about the incident, pressures then mounted from stakeholders which eventually compelled the release of the hitherto abducted Committee Chairman. It was only thereafter that aspirants proceeded to the field for the primaries in their various Local Government Areas”, the statement further claimed.

It said, “Whereas, this group had remained calm and hopeful that the Party’s leadership would do the right thing by declaring the eventual winners not only in Ebonyi Central but other contested positions within and outside the State, we are seriously disturbed by the allegations of late-hour bribery filtering in from the nation’s capital, Abuja allegedly involving a powerful minister in Tinubu’s cabinet.

As a group which monitored the peaceful and peaceable conduct of the exercise across Ebonyi Central and beyond, we beckon on the stakeholders, especially the former Governor of Ebonyi State and former Minister and indeed every stakeholder in the Ebonyi NDC project to please resist any attempt to collect any bribe from any quarters in order to compromise the long awaited final results of the election.

We make this warning against the backdrop of the personal integrity of our Party’s Presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, the national leader, Sen. Henry Seriake Dickson and indeed other leaders of the Party that have shown reputable character, integrity and honesty both in and out of public offices”, it concluded.

Recall that the NDC in and statement by it’s Director of Information had informed that the Party’s leadership has convoked a National Executive Council, (NEC) meeting tomorrow in order to deliberate and release the outcome of the primaries held across the 36 States of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.