EFCC quizzes INEC staff over N120m bribe

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) investigators interrogated 11 staff of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) staffs over N120 million bribes they allegedly received from some politicians to undermine electoral process in the 2015 election conducted by the Commission, Daily Trust has gathered.

Sources in the EFCC say the INEC staff, all electoral officers in charge of the 11 local government areas of Gombe State, reported at Gombe State Zonal Office of the EFCC where they were quizzed over the N120 million bribes.

The source added that they had made useful statements, and most had confessed to receiving millions of naira for their local governments  from two of them who negotiated and collected the bribe on their behalf.

It was gathered that the Electoral officers for Akko LGA and Gombe LG, Ahmed Ali Biu, and Mohammed B Zannah, admitted to have collected the bribe from one Yunusa Ali Biri, also a retired electoral officer who acted as Gombe State coordinator of bribes for electoral officers in the state.

Biri was known and addressed as coordinator of NGO, a euphemism or code, used to cover the activities of the two parties, Daily Trust learnt.

The source said: "At the meeting of the State coordinator, Biu, and Zannah as electoral officers lodged at Corner Alheri, opposite NNPC mega station, in Gombe, where the parties agreed to share the bribe per polling unit in each local government and part of the bribe should go to adhoc staff employed and deployed to each polling station across the State."

"However, the Commission would have to unravel the discrepancy in the amount collected and the actual money disbursed to the electoral officers. Some claimed that the coordinator shortchanged them because he gave only N88 million (N8m each) to the 11 local governments in the state," the source stated.

The names of other electoral officers at the Commission office were: Godwin Maiyaki Gambo Balanga, Bukar Alone Benisheik, Dukku, Jibril. B. Muhammed,Billiri, Dunguma Musa Dogona, Funakaye, Mohammed. A. Wanka, Kaltungo, Ishaku Yusuf, Kwami, Suleiman Isawa, Nafada, Babagana Malami, Shongom, and Nuhu Samuel, Y/Deba.