The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Atiku Abubakar, has insisted the result from the server of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) shows that he defeated President Muhammadu Buhari in the presidential election.
In his submission to the presidential election tribunal, the former vice president gave the “unique MAC address and Microsoft product ID of the INEC server,” from where the results were obtained.
INEC had declared Buhari winner of the election, saying he polled 15,191,847 to defeat Atiku, who scored 11,262,978 votes. However, Atiku has since claimed he actually polled 18,356,732 votes to Buhari’s 16,741,430, citing figures from INEC’s server.
INEC, in response, said the results being paraded by Abubakar are fabricated and not from its website.
But in their response to INEC’s submission, Abubakar and PDP said the address of the server from which the results were obtained are unique to INEC.
“The servers from which the said figures were derived belong to the first respondent (INEC). The figures and votes were transmitted to the first respondent’s Presidential Result’s Server 1 and thereafter aggregated in INEC_PRES_RSLT_SRV2019, whose Physical Address or unique Mac Address is 94-57-A5-DC-64-B9 with Microsoft Product ID 00252-7000000000-AA535.
“The above descriptions are unique to the 1st respondent’s server.
“There is no conjecture in the votes and scores in the table pleaded by the petitioners. The figures are factual. Spokesperson for the 2nd respondent’s Campaign Organisation openly admitted that the data in question was in the first respondent’s server when he wrote and submitted a petition to the Inspector General of Police and Director General of Department of State Services, DSS, asking the security agencies to investigate the 2nd petitioner herein for allegedly hacking into the server of the 1st respondent and obtaining the data in question.
“Specifically, Mr. Festus Keyamo, SAN, the spokesperson of the 2nd respondent, claimed in the said petition that it was the first petitioner who smuggled the data into the server,” contended Atiku and the PDP.
Atiku and PDP also alleged that the INEC chairman “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.
“The grave errors referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 above were under the hands and signature of the first respondent’s chairman (who was also the Returning Officer) in the conduct of the final collation of the results of the presidential election.
“The petitioners state that the final results as declared by the first respondent are those that were transmitted online to the website of the first respondent (www inecnigeria.org).”
Meanwhile, INEC chairman, information and voter education committee, Mr. Festus Okoye, in a statement, said the commission was aware of the petition pending before tribunal, for which it is one of the respondents. According to Okoye, “INEC is also aware that issues have been joined in the said petitions as the petitioners have filed their petitions and the respondents have responded to the petitions.
“The commission is aware that very senior lawyers are representing the petitioners and the respondents in relation to the said petitions.
“The commission is a law-abiding institution and will not argue or canvass in the media, petitions that are sub-judice and where the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal is firmly seized of the issues.
“The lawyers representing the petitioners are seized of the state of the law and the course to take if they truly believe that the Commission is in disobedience of the orders of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
“The commission is a law-abiding institution and will continue to accord the requisite respect to judicial institutions and obey the orders of court,” he said.
