Chairman of the INEC Committee on Collation Centre for the general elections, Amina Zakari, has responded to reports that she is a relation of President Buhari.
Zakari in an interview with BBC, said the allegation that President Buhari is her Uncle is unfounded and totally false.
Zakari made news on Thursday last week when the electoral body, INEC, announced she would be the head of the collation for the presidential election.
“President Muhammadu Buhari is my President as [he is] everybody else’s President. He is not my cousin, he is not my uncle as is being claimed,” Zakari said in the BBC interview.
While rejecting the claims, Zakari explained that she had done her job diligently over the years without scandal or blame. She pointed out that she was first appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010 and served as a Special Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo prior to that.
“I have done my job conscientiously over the years as a patriotic citizen of Nigeria. I don’t think I should be distracted now that elections are coming forward. I will continue doing my work. I will continue serving my country to the best of my ability with the best of intentions.”
She noted that she had always been part of INEC activities including the 2015 presidential election which President Buhari, her supposed uncle, lost to Jonathan.
“I have been on this job since 2010 and this same President lost an election and the people that complained have worked closely with me. They have not in any way accused me of any wrongdoing over the years and I have done my work diligently. I was in charge of political party monitoring for four years – from 2010 to 2014. There was not a single scandal to my name and nobody can claim to have paid me or asked me to do anything wrong. And if they have, I would love them to come forward and prove it to the nation and to the world at large because this is getting into a global dimension.” she said
