Tinubu’s aide speaks on alleged $200 million bribe to INEC chairman

Dele Alake, the Special Adviser Communications to President-elect Bola Tinubu, on Saturday said the acclaimed Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie “will be lucky if she does not have to prove” the “weighty allegation” that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commision (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu “compromised” the 2023 presidential election.

POLITICS NIGERIA reports that reacting to social media rumours that Prof. Yakubu accepted the sum of $200 million from Tinubu to tilt the February 25 election in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain’s favour, Alake said “there is no evidence”.

The president elect’s aide criticised Adichie for “throwing all caution to the winds” and writing about an unproven claim.

This newspaper recalls that Adichie recently wrote to President Joe Biden of the United States of America (USA), questioning why American political leaders keep congratulating Tinubu.

But Alake was left unimpressed with the novelist’s letter.

“Amazingly, throwing all caution to the winds, Chimamanda writes “Many believe that the INEC Chair has been “compromised” but there is no evidence of the astronomical US-dollar amounts he is rumored to have received from the President-elect”. This is incredible. Chimamanda will be lucky if she does not have to prove this weighty allegation in court,” Alake wrote.

Some persons on social media had claimed that the said transaction between Messrs Tinubu and Yakubu was made through a Swiss account into a Barclays bank. According to them, the money was paid in bits of $50 million per transaction into four places and payment was allegedly made on February 23 – two days to the election.