2019 Election: Atiku, PDP Victims Of Scammers – INEC Alleges

• Says no poll results on so-called server  INEC Chairman, Prof Yakubu…defending action at Tribunal

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar in the February 23, 2019 presidential poll may have fallen victims of scammers as the Commission never transmitted the 2019 presidential election results on any server as claimed by the petitioners.

Distancing itself from the ‘server results’ which the opposition Party and its flag-bearer are parading as the ‘true results’ of the February 23 poll, the electoral umpire maintained that the claims are totally untrue and the bandied figures fake because no results exist on the so-called INEC server

Replying to the petition filed before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal by the PDP and Atiku challenging the re-election of President Muhammadu Buhari, as declared by INEC on 27 February, the Commission, through its lead counsel, Yunus Usman (SAN), said results of the elections were never transmitted or collated electronically

The Commission’s rebuttal further alleged that by their claims, the PDP and Atiku may have been scammed to believe that the results were stored electronically.

It categorically denied the existence of any server where such electronically transmitted results could have been obtained by the petitioners.

Four days after the February 23 poll, INEC had declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, as winner with 15,191,847 votes with his closest rival, Atiku, polling 11,262,978 votes.

But the petitioners stated that “from the data in the 1st respondent’s (INEC’s) server…the true, actual and correct results” from the “state to state computation” showed that Atiku polled a total of 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari who they said scored 16,741,430 votes.

They said the results were the total votes scored by the candidates in 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, as there was “no report on sever” about the results from Rivers State as of February 25, 2019. By calculation, Atiku and the PDP claimed to have defeated Buhari by 1,615,302 votes.

However, in urging the Tribunal to dismiss the petition, the electoral umpire described  the petitioners’ claims as false in its reply filed on April 10, 2019.

In his witness statement on oath attached to the reply, INEC’s Director, Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Mr Chidi Nwafor, specifically disowned the ‘server results’ which the petitioners are laying claims to before the Tribunal.

He said all the results were collated manually and were never transmitted electronically, adding that Buhari was duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election.

The statement further averred: “That the petitioners are claiming that votes recorded at the various polling units were electronically transmitted and stored in the 1st respondent’s (INEC’s) server;

“That the petitioners are also claiming that based on the server contents, they and not the 2nd and 3rd respondents won the presidential election;

“That these claims of the petitioners are false as I know as a fact that the 2nd respondent was duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the presidential election and scored at least a quarter of the lawful votes cast at the election in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, more than two-thirds of all the states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.”

Nwafor also said; “That the petitioners did not win the majority of the lawful votes cast and did not satisfy the mandatory constitutional requirement to be declared winner having polled 11,262,978 and one quarter of all lawful votes cast in 29 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja as against the 2nd respondent who scored 15,191,847 votes cast and one quarter of the lawful votes cast in 33 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

“That the lawful and recognised computation of results is manually done using Electoral Form EC8 series and not the table pleaded by the petitioners given that the said table is not the result collated and declared by the 1st respondent.

“That I know as a fact that the details contained in the table in the paragraph 22 of the petition are inaccurate.” – With agency report