Flashback: What INEC Chairman, REC Said About Server And Election Results

A throwback video has resurfaced online, showing the moment Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Akwa-Ibom State, revealed how the 2019 Presidential election results would be transmitted to the server of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nigeria’s electoral umpire.

In another video, INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, said the commission would deploy a “new platform for the electronic collation and transmission of results.”

Naija News recalls that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Nigeria’s main opposition party, Atiku Abubakar, had alleged that results from INEC server showed that he won the election, a claim which the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party condemned strongly.

In response, INEC dismissed Abuabakar’s claim, saying the results he paraded were fabricated.

To back up his claim, the PDP presidential candidate said he was willing to engage experts from Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle to verify his claim.

The former Vice President and the PDP had said INEC pulled down the results from its server and replaced it with a doctored one to favour President Muhammadu Buhari.

This online news platform recalls that the commission had said figures from the 36 states and federal capital territory (FCT) gave Buhari 15,191,847 votes, while Atiku came second with 11,262,978 votes.

Challenging the results at the election tribunal in his 139-page petition, Abubakar said the results from INEC server showed he polled 18,356,732 votes to defeat Buhari who had 16,741,430 votes.

Weeks after Abubakar’s claims, 13 INEC presiding officers, admitted transmitting results of the February 23 presidential election to the server of the commission.

Pressing further on their claims, the PDP and Abubakar at the resumption of the tribunal on Thursday, June 13, prayed the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to order INEC to grant them permission to inspect the commission’s saver.

However, in response, Yunus Ustaz Usman (SAN), the Counsel to INEC, urged the Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal to strike out the application of the PDP and Abubakar, adding that: “They are asking us to bring something we don’t have.”

In the same vein, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the counsel to President Muhammadu Buhari and that of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nigeria’s ruling party, Lateef Fagnemi (SAN), asked the court to dismiss the application for failing to disclose the existence of the server.

While INEC counsel claims the commission does not have a server, a throwback video seen by Naija News, says otherwise, with INEC Chairman and REC both confirming the electronic transmission of results to the commission’s sever.

“We will deploy in the 2019 general elections, a new platform for the electronic collation and transmission of results,” Yakubu said in a throwback video sighted by Naija News.

Igini on the other hand said: “What we are going to do on Saturday in each of the polling units and we have trained people for that, is that unlike before when you have only one collation officer, we are now having two collation officers at the ward level and this is how we are going to go about it.

“First the presiding officer will have to input the results into the card reader and we will send it straight away to the central server,” Igini had said, confirming Abubakar’s claim that INEC has a server.

Watch the videos below…

INEC: We don't have a server where election results were transmitted.

Atiku: 👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/QiSgSTUL5g

— Babasola Kuti 🇬🇧 🇳🇬 (@RealSolaKuti) June 14, 2019

This is what the INEC Resident Commissioner said on your own ChannelsTV Show about INEC's use of Servers ..

I hope you are responsible enough to bring this up pic.twitter.com/B3BzgPrvwL

— Gene Grey (@EuginhoCortez) June 14, 2019