Former President Goodluck Jonathan has strongly denied the reported
statements credited to Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State that he was
offered a bribe by the former president ahead of the 2015 presidential
election as part of efforts to enlist his support.
Jonathan said
this in reaction to the specific allegation that he offered “huge sums
of money and an influential ministry” to Okorocha in order to make him
abandon the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP).
Jonathan insisted that there was no such encounter
between the two men, adding, that it could only have happened in
Okorocha’s dream.
The former president made his views known in a statement through Ikechukwu Eze, his spokesman.
The statement read, “We offer to quickly dismiss these claims as lies,
because we are clear in our minds that such conversation never happened.
“We
are wondering whether this truly came from the governor because we are
sure that even governor Okorocha himself did not believe that anybody
would accept these claims.
“In the first place, it sounded
irrational and absurd. Besides, it was obvious to all and sundry that
the south-east, being Dr. Jonathan’s political stronghold, the
ex-President did not need Okorocha to win in the zone.
“However,
to set the records straight, we make bold to say that former President
Jonathan never made any contact with Okorocha, ahead of the 2015
elections.
“All those who had either worked closely with him in
any capacity, or served in Jonathan’s administration can bear testimony
to the fact that idle talk is not his style.
“Since we know that
the only proof the purveyors of this bribery allegation could offer is
to probably claim that the transaction happened in a dream, we can only
offer the governor sincere advice, to avoid rumours and twaddle, and get
down to the business of result-oriented governance.
“Governor
Okorocha would have served his state better, if he directed his enormous
drive to creating growth and development opportunities for the good
people of Imo state, rather than allowing himself to be drawn into
dissipating his energy on platitudes and propaganda”.
No comments:
Post a Comment