Ime Akpan
The All Progressives Congress (APC) and its rival People’s Democratic Party (PDP) are again locked in a bitter argument over alleged illegal access to the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The APC Presidential Campaign Council had yesterday asked the Nigeria Police Force and the Department of State Services (DSS) to invite, interrogate and possibly prosecute leaders of the PDP for alleged illegal access to INEC server.
Spokesman for the organisation, Mr. Festus Keyamo (SAN), who made the call in a petition addressed to the acting inspector-general of police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu and the director general of DSS, Mr. Yusuf Bichi referred to the fact PDP’s presidential candidate, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, had filed a petition against the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and made a claim of having access to the INEC server.
In the petition, Atiku claimed he defeated Buhari by 1,615,302 votes in the February 23 presidential election.
“Upon the last-minute postponement of the February 16, 2019 presidential/national assembly elections, the nation was shocked to see already-prepared presidential elections results floating around the cyberspace, just less than 24 hours after the postponed election was originally billed to hold! The fake results had details of the scores of the candidates of the major parties. Of course, the fake results gave victory to the candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, even when elections did not hold,” said Keyamo.
Keyamo stated that the fake results which had details of the scores of the candidates of the major political parties gave victory to Atiku even when elections did not hold.
He added that the claim had revealed that “some criminally-minded PDP operatives” had access to the INEC server to be able to smuggle in fake results.
“The only conclusion one could draw from the above was that the PDP had prepared those results which were to be smuggled into the INEC server. However, the sudden postponement of the election scuttled that evil plan, but, it was too late to restrain the release of the fake results.
“The proper elections were held on February 23, and President Muhammadu Buhari declared the winner. Despite the approval of the elections as credible by nearly all local and international observers (except some few known PDP acolytes masquerading as local observers), the PDP cried foul and made a shocking claim: it claimed that from purported results it obtained from INEC’s server, it has so-called proof that its candidate won the election by about 1.6 million votes!
“Shockingly and coincidentally, this margin was about the same margin by which it also purportedly won by the fake results released just hours after the postponement of the February 16, 2019 presidential/national assembly elections,” he said.
He therefore prayed Adamu and Bichi to “use your good offices to investigate the hacking of and/or illegal tampering with the INEC server by the PDP.
“The leadership of the PDP must be invited, interrogated and investigated and those identified as perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted.”
But the PDP responded saying the Buhari, nay, APC camp had become edgy because of the by Atiku at the presidential election tribunal.
The party’s national chairman, Mr. Uche Secondus, said the national leadership of the party would not be intimidated.
He said both the APC and the president were afraid to defend their “rigging of the presidential election at the tribunal.”
“It is obvious that the President and his party are afraid and are panicking as a result of the petition we filed at the tribunal.
“They failed in their clandestine moves to persuade us not to go to the tribunal. Now the reality has dawned on them that they have to defend the injustice they meted out to us and Nigerians now.
“Now, for election they claimed they won, they ought to have filed their defence at the tribunal and be eager to defend it.
“Why are they running to the DSS and the Police with the hope that they will force us to reveal our sources? Tell them to go to the tribunal and submit their evidence of winning the election,” he added.
Also reacting, spokesman for the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan in a statement asked the APC to prepare to face its legal team at the presidential election tribunal instead of engaging in “unnecessary fabrications, smear campaign.”
He said the APC and the current administration are overweighed by the “burden of illegitimacy, following overwhelming evidence before the tribunal that they stole the presidential mandate, hence this lame attempt at blackmailing the tribunal by engaging in clear acts of subjudice.”
“The PDP states that the facts and issues touching on the INEC server are already within the public domain and Nigerians are already at home with them.
“By resorting to shadow-boxing outside the tribunal, President Buhari and the APC have shown that they have no defence to present to the court against PDP’s submission that they stole our mandate.”
“It is even more appalling that Festus Keyamo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and a member of Buhari’s legal team, who should know better, would engage in this act of subjudice designed to distort facts already known to Nigerians, that our presidential candidate and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, clearly won the February 23, presidential election.
“Since it has become clear that President Buhari has no defence to present to the court, we counsel him to save the nation further stress by surrendering our mandate, which was freely given by majority of Nigerians to Atiku Abubakar,” said Ologbondiyan.
With Punch, The Sun reports
