The Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Panel sent to oversee the Imo gubernatorial primaries, Ahmed Gulak has revealed how an individual tried to bribe him with $2 million and a private jet flight to Imo to help manipulate the outcome.
The controversial primaries had produced a candidate, Sen. Hope Uzodinma (APC – Imo West), who the National Working Committee (NWC) has now endorsed, but Governor Rochas Okorocha has said that his son-in-law and Chief of Staff, Uche Nwosu won the primaries.
But Gulak, a former Political Adviser to ex-President Jonathan, insisted that the process supervised by his panel produced Uzodinma as Imo gubernatorial candidate candidate, a move which has continued to pitch him against Okorocha.
Speaking with Saturday Vanguard, Gulak disclosed that he was nearly kidnapped alongside some members of the panel after he refused to take the bribe.
He said, “…Even before I went to Imo state, I was offered a private jet to take me to Imo state but I refused because I didn’t want to be compromised.
“I refused the private jet and even the tempting offer made to me, very tempting, we are talking about two million dollars here, which I refused.
“Although, I tried to persuade them that I was going to do what is needful, free and fair primaries. Every stakeholder must be involved.
“Immediately we landed at the airport, that was where the problem started. They wanted to kidnap every member and only God knows where they wanted to take us to, which I refused.”
Gulak accused Okorocha of forcing some members of the panel to declare his son-in-law as winner of the polls, which led to its cancellation.
He added, “We (panel members) went to Imo, we stood our ground, elections held, results collated and the winner announced. We came back, in fact after the collation few others and myself escaped from where we would have been conscripted.
“The governor himself came to take everybody in the hotel but before he arrived, about four of us escaped and he moved other members including the secretary. He took them to Government House and they read a prepared speech declaring his son in-law the winner of that exercise. But I had already left Owerri for Abuja where I submitted my result. As I speak today, there is no single petition against our report and against the result.”
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