The Independent National Electoral Commission has distanced
itself from the “server results” which the Peoples Democratic Party and its
presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, are laying claim to as the “true
results” of the February 23 election.
INEC said this in its reply to the petition filed before the
Presidential Election Petition Tribunal by the PDP and Atiku to challenge the
outcome of the February 23 election. The commission, through its lead counsel,
Yunus Usman (SAN), said the results of the poll were never transmitted or
collated electronically.
It added that it kept no such server where such
electronically transmitted results could have been obtained. INEC had on
February 27, 2019 declared that the All Progressives Congress alongside its
candidate, President Muhammadu Buhari, won the February 23 election with
15,191,847 votes to defeat his closest rival, Atiku, who it said polled
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. But the commission, urging the tribunal to dismiss the
petition, said in its reply filed on April 10, that the petitioners’ claims
were false.
The INEC’s Director, Information and Communications
Technology, Mr Chidi Nwafor, in his witness statement on oath attached to the
reply, specifically denied the “server results” which the petitioners were
laying claim to. He said all the results were collated manually and were never
transmitted electronically.
Nwafor added that Buhari was duly elected by majority of the
lawful votes cast at the presidential election.
He stated, “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 stated, “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.
“That I know that mode of transmitting/collating election
results is manual, using Forms EC8As, EC8Bs, EC8Cs and EC8Ds and not
electronically done. That I know that the Manual Technologies 2019 and
demonstration videos referred to in paragraph 27 are internal training materials.”
