The Office of former President Jonathan has dismissed as a blatant lie,
the claim by the running mate to the All Progressives Congress, APC,
governorship candidate in Lagos State, Mr. Obafemi Hamzat, that he
rejected a $5million bribe from former President Goodluck Jonathan
during the 2015 elections.
In a statement issued on Sunday,
Ikechukwu Eze, media adviser to the former President stressed that
Jonathan had never met Mr. Hamzat who he said was not relevant in the
politics of 2015 elections.
Describing Hamzat as a compulsive liar, Eze stated that Hamzat does not possess the character for the office he now seeks.
Below is the full statement:
Re: $5m bribe claim: Hamzat’s blatant lie against ex-President Jonathan
Our
attention has been drawn to a claim by the running mate to the All
Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate in Lagos State, Mr.
Obafemi Hamzat, that he rejected a $5million 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 recognizable 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, and whose best outing so far is to function
as a hand-picked running mate to a governorship candidate in the
forthcoming 2019 elections?
His is obviously the antics of a
desperate and dishonest politician seeking to apply subterfuge and
outright lies, believing that such could boost his lowly image, win for
him public sympathy and possibly, votes. It is the action of people like
Hamzat that conjures up in the minds of Nigerians the Biblical ‘Mark of
the Beast’ to the effect that to be accepted in his party, one must be
adept at telling lies.
If this is how Mr. Hamzat wishes to anchor
his own political doctrine on lies and name dropping, he should be
reminded that those who follow this route do not go far either in
politics or personal growth. This definitely should not be the character
and colour of a person who wants to become a governor or deputy
governor of a state, lest we lose all hope in the expectation that we
have all it takes to rescue our country from the bleak future that
stares it in the face.
What we know about liars is that they
always leave a loose end which readily exposes them for who they are.
Otherwise, Mr. Hamzat should have been bold enough to tell Nigerians
where the money was presented to him and in whose presence the offer was
made. We have always made the point that there should be a limit to
these lies, if we must make progress as a democratic nation. Nigerians
are not fools. It is high time those in positions of responsibility
stopped running this country on lies.
Share your thoughts