‘I Rejected N300M Bribe To Dump APC’ – Senator Binta Garba

The senator representing Adamawa Northern Senatorial District, Binta Garba, has said the Peoples Democratic Party, in the twilight of the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, approached her, as the Chairman of the Adamawa State chapter of the All Progressives Congress, to dump the APC.

Garba said she was offered over N300m by the PDP so that Governor Jibrilla Bindow, the then candidate of the APC, would not scale through.

She said her refusal to accept the bait from the then ruling party averted a crisis with the party gaining victory at the governorship polls and the three senatorial seats in the state.

The senator, who spoke ahead of the APC primary, urged party members to re-elect President Muhammadu Buhari, Governor Jibrilla Bindow and herself again.

She said, “When I was chairman of the APC in the state, the PDP approached me to ditch the party and the candidate of the party then (Bindow), who later became governor. They said he (Bindow) would not go anywhere and that I should leave the APC and work for the PDP and offered me not N100m, not even N200m nor even N300m but far more than that.

“But I rejected the money and the offer and I told them that if I could not be bought during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, so I did not see how anybody would buy my conscience.”

Garba, who is attempting to return to the Senate, is facing the challenge of seven male aspirants, including a former Special Adviser on Political Matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Ali Gulak; a former Director -General, Nigerian Law School, Dr Mamman Tahir; Executive Chairman, Adamawa State Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr Abdullahi Belel; and the House of Representatives member representing Michika and Madagali Federal Constituency, Adamu Kamale.

She added that the perception of her as a “strong woman” by the founding members of the APC in Adamawa State played a key role in her emergence as the first female chairman of a major political party.

She said she remained true to the confidence reposed in her by not betraying the stakeholders and members of the party.