{"id":123859,"date":"2023-11-26T13:02:47","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T13:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/11\/26\/how-we-lost-election-because-i-rejected-offer-to-bribe-inec-obasanjo\/"},"modified":"2023-11-26T13:02:47","modified_gmt":"2023-11-26T13:02:47","slug":"how-we-lost-election-because-i-rejected-offer-to-bribe-inec-obasanjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/11\/26\/how-we-lost-election-because-i-rejected-offer-to-bribe-inec-obasanjo\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;How We Lost Election Because I Rejected Offer To Bribe INEC&#8221; \u2013 Obasanjo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has narrated how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lost a local government election in Ogun State in 1998 because he rejected plans to bribe officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo made this revelation on Monday in Abeokuta, at a high-level consultation he organised titled, \u2018Rethinking Western Liberal Democracy in Africa\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the party leaders had told him that there should be money allocated for the police and INEC, but he rejected the proposal on the belief that INEC officials and policemen are government workers earning salaries monthly.<\/p>\n<p>Obasanjo told politicians and professors at the debate that he is not always comfortable with the phrase, \u2018Nigerian factor\u2019, when discussing democracy and other issues affecting development.<\/p>\n<p>He said: \u201cWhen things go wrong, you said the Nigerian factor. The first thing I learnt in politics was this thing called the Nigerian factor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 1998, we had the first local government election. We had parties, and here in Abeokuta, we met in my office and they came up and said, \u2018look, this is money for INEC, money for police.\u2019 At a stage, I said, \u2018What nonsense! Is police not being paid, and INEC too?\u2019<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ MORE:\u00a0Western Liberal Democracy Not Working in Africa, Another System Needs To Be Adopted \u2014 Obasanjo<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey said \u2018that\u2019s how we do it. I said \u2018You cannot do that.\u2019 So, they didn\u2019t do that. And of course, we lost all the local governments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe lost all. And then they came to me and said, \u2018Baba, you see? If you had allowed us to do it the way we used to do it, we would have won. And I felt guilty.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring the next election which was State Assembly, I just stayed in my house. I said \u2018Well, do whatever you want to do, I will not be part of it\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I didn\u2019t even go. But, the result was the same. One of the people who got money didn\u2019t even distribute it to where he was supposed to distribute it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"code-block code-block-12\">\n<p>\u201cWhen you are hungry, whatever anybody tells you cannot go in. Poverty is a great enemy of democracy. Ignorance or lack of education is a great enemy of democracy. And we seem to be deliberately fomenting poverty and lack of education,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has narrated how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lost a local government election in Ogun State in 1998 because he rejected plans to bribe officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Obasanjo made this revelation on Monday in Abeokuta, at a high-level consultation he organised titled, \u2018Rethinking Western Liberal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123860,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nigeria-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&quot;How We Lost Election Because I Rejected Offer To Bribe INEC&quot; \u2013 Obasanjo - Ghanamma.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2023\/11\/26\/how-we-lost-election-because-i-rejected-offer-to-bribe-inec-obasanjo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;How We Lost Election Because I Rejected Offer To Bribe INEC&quot; \u2013 Obasanjo - Ghanamma.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has narrated how the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), lost a local government election in Ogun State in 1998 because he rejected plans to bribe officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). 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