Atiku Vs INEC: An Interesting Turn of Events

Atiku Abubakar

A recent revelation by some 13 presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission that they transmitted the presidential election results electronically to the commission’s server has again put the commission on the spot and opened a vista of debate, writes Davidson Iriekpen
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has come under intense fire the moment 13 of its presiding officers said they were ready to testify at the presidential election petition tribunal that they transmitted results electronically to the commission’s server during the February 23, presidential election. The officers, who are in Borno and Yobe states, under oath, said they transmitted the results on the instruction of the commission.
The contention on whether or not the results of the presidential election were forwarded to a central database of the commission has been among the top grounds for contesting the presidential election results by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
On February 27, INEC declared President Muhammadu Buhari winner of the presidential election, and issued him a certificate of return for a second four-year term starting on May 29, 2019. But Atiku and his party, the PDP, dissatisfied with the result declared challenged it at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal last month, saying they won the election and were in possession of evidence that would upturn the declared outcome.
In his 139-page petition challenging the results at the election tribunal, Atiku said the results from INEC server showed he polled 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari who had 16,741,430 votes, which according to him, contradicted the results declared by INEC that said Buhari received 15,191,847 votes against Atiku’s 11,262,978.
His lawyers said the results were released by an INEC whistleblower that had access to the commission’s internal server and other tools throughout the election.
But the All Progressives Congress (APC) is also tackling the former vice president over his claims that the results from INEC server showed that he won the election. In addition, the commission too had dismissed Atiku’s claim, saying the results he paraded were fabricated, adding that the results were transmitted manually and as such, there was nothing in the server.
It added that the results the former vice president was parading were fake and fabricated. Consequent upon this, the APC asked that Atiku should be arrested for hacking into INEC’s supposed empty server. But the PDP presidential candidate said he was willing to engage experts from Microsoft, IBM and Oracle to verify his claim. He and the PDP said INEC pulled down the results from its server and replaced it with a doctored one to favour the president.
To pacify the ruling party, the electoral umpire advised that it should not worry because there was nothing in the server. THISDAY checks revealed that as soon as Atiku publicised the INEC server ID to prove that he had genuine election results, operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested workers in the commission’s IT department for leaking information on the server.
It was further learnt that when the wives and families of arrested INEC staff threatened to protest publicly, the DSS quickly released the INEC staff.
To the consternation of Nigerians, in a response to INEC’s denial of the server and its purported result, Atiku’s legal team has attached affidavits from the 13 officers to the tribunal. In their witness statement of oath, the presiding officers said INEC had during their training, instructed them on how to electronically transmit the results to its server.
“We were specifically instructed that the use of the smart card reader for accreditation, verification, authentication, collation and transmission of results is mandatory and that any election conducted without the use of the smart card reader would be invalid.
“I took part in the conduc