Zakari Not Buhari’s Blood Relation – Presidency

The presidency Friday said Hajiya Amina Zakari, a commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is not a blood relation of President Muhammadu Buhari as being speculated by the main opposition.

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said in a statement responding to the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, urged it to stop accusing the commissioner of partiality and impugning her person, reminding the party that Zakari was an appointee of former President Goodluck Jonathan of the PDP.

It will be recall that the PDP had been repeatedly accused Zakari and INEC of partiality and working to ensure that Buhari and his ruling APC emerged victorious in next month’s election.

The statement reads: “In another mendacious press release, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has continued their baseless accusations regarding Hajiya Amina Zakari, a commissioner in the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) accusing her of partiality and casting doubts about her integrity as an electoral commissioner.

In their desperation, they forget that it was the PDP government that appointed her in the first place and they keep lying, as they have been caught doing on so many issues, by imputing a blood relationship between her and President Muhammadu Buhari.

President Buhari and Commissioner Amina Zakari don’t share a family relationship. An inter-marriage occurred in their extended families, so the imputation of blood relationship between the President and the electoral commissioner is a simple lie.

What is even more curious about all the fuss coming from the PDP is that they, as a ruling party picked Mrs Zakari, judging her by her own merit and made her an electoral commissioner.

She served so well with distinction as can be verified from the records that President Buhari approved the recommendation that she be reappointed, as he did other PDP nominees for second-term of four years.

PDP, therefore, has no moral right to keep harassing this hardworking mother unless they have a hidden agenda.

By this statement, the PDP is guilty of scoring an own goal and two, of harassing an innocent citizen on the basis of a lie, pure and simple.”