Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has denied allegations that he spent N111million to bribe Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) staff during the Dec. 10 re-run legislative election in the state.
THEWILL recalls that the panel constituted to investigate the electoral and other offences perpetrated during the re-run election alleged that it recovered N111 million from 23 INEC officials.
According to the Chairman of the panel, Damian Okoro, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, while presenting the team’s report to the Inspector-General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, in Abuja on Tuesday, he alleged that three senior electoral officers collected N20 million each out of the N360 million given to them by Wike while the remaining officers received N15 million each.
However, in response to the accusation, Simeon Nwakaudu, Special Assistant to the Rivers Governor on Electronic Media, in a statement in Port Harcourt, said the allegation was false and politically motivated insisting that the allegation by the police was aimed at diverting attention from the real issues about the election.
“The statement (by the police) is patently false, politically motivated and cooked by the police to justify the violence they visited in the people of Rivers state during the re-run” he said.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike did not spend N360 million to rig the re-run legislative elections of December 10, 2016.
“The people of Rivers State overwhelmingly voted the PDP across the state because of the outstanding performance of Governor Wike since May 29, 2015.”
